Episodes
Friday Nov 05, 2010
Edgar Allan Poe -- Biography Out Loud
Friday Nov 05, 2010
Friday Nov 05, 2010
Master of mystery and the macabre, he may be one of America’s most famous writers. Well respected in France, his works were translated there by Charles Baudelaire. Married to his 13 year-old cousin, she died only seven years later, and “the death of a beautiful woman” became one of this writer’s frequent themes. Known best for his scary short stories and poems, who is this writer born January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts?
We’ll find out in a moment on Biography Out Loud.
Edgar Allan Poe’s father abandoned his family, and Poe’s mother died a year later. Never formally adopted by the Allan’s, Poe and his foster father had a turbulent relationship. Poe signed with the U.S. Army as “Edgar A. Perry”, later deciding to try to end his enlistment early. Revealing his false identity, his commanding officer made Poe write to his foster father who later supported the discharge. Poe found someone to replace him in Army, and John Allan wrote in support of Poe enlisting in West Point. Edgar Allan Poe was also later discharged from there.
Though a struggling writer most of his life, “The Raven” made him famous overnight although he was only paid nine dollars for the poem. Known for “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, “Annabelle Lee” and “A Cask of Amontillado”, Poe was one of the first writer’s to attempt to make a living full-time from his work. Found disoriented and wandering the streets of Baltimore on October 3rd, 1849, Poe died four days later, only 40 years old.
One hundred years after his birth, cognac and three roses were left on his grave. The tradition carried on for more than 60 years. When the “Poe Toaster” didn’t appear in 2010, leading to speculation the person who has carried on this tradition may have died.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Edgar Allan PoeTuesday Oct 26, 2010
Biography Out Loud -- Guy de Maupassant
Tuesday Oct 26, 2010
Tuesday Oct 26, 2010
An audio version of this episode is available below.
Born on August 5th, 1850, he once said, “I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt.” One of many French people who despised the Eiffel Tower, he would often eat at the restaurant at its base to avoid having to see the structure. Who is this outspoken author who has been called one of the fathers of the modern short story? We’ll find out in a moment on Biography Out Loud.
Biography Out Loud
Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant and forty-six other notable French authors and artists wrote a letter to the Minister of Public Works protesting the construction of the Eiffel Tower. An influential writer, Maupassant is credited with inspiring the works of several authors including O. Henry, Somerset Maugham and Henry James. When he was eighteen, he saved the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne from drowning, and was passionate about boating. He served as a Naval clerk in the Franco-Prussian War for ten years. Flaubert was a great influence on Guy de Maupassant, guiding him in his efforts in writing. Maupassant became very popular with multiple reprinting of his short stories and novels. He knew Alexander Dumas, Turgenev and Zola. Maupassant once said, “It is the encounters with people that make life worth living.”
He desired more and more solitude in his advancing years, fearing death and feeling persecuted. He tried to commit suicide but was placed in a private asylum where he died on July 6th, 1893. Writing his own epitaph, he said, “I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing."
In his short story, “A Wife’s Confession”, Guy de Maupassant says, “A legal kiss is never as good as a stolen one.”
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Guy de MaupassantWednesday Oct 13, 2010
Wilford Owen -- Biography Out Loud
Wednesday Oct 13, 2010
Wednesday Oct 13, 2010
Biography Out Loud
Considered to be the leading poet of World War I, he died a week before it ended. A telegram from the War Office in England notifying his mother of his death arrived as church bells were ringing, announcing the Armistice. He eventually became more famous than Sigfried Sassoon, the poet he most admired and emulated. When Sassoon returned from the war, this wounded soldier returned to the front in his place, hoping to continue to document the horrors of war. Who is this famous poet who died when only 25 years old? We’ll find out next on Biography Out Loud.
Wilford Owen is best known for his graphic World War I poetry, which told the story of gas warfare. In “Dulce Decorum Est” the famous line of “Gas! Gas! Quick boys!” is followed by a chilling description of a soldier dying from exposure to the deadly chemicals.While once a critic of the other soldiers, who he called “expressionless lumps” in a letter to his mother, Owen went through two traumatic episodes which changed his opinion of his brave compatriots. A mortar once exploded beneath him, throwing him in the air. He landed on the remains of a fellow officer. He was also trapped for several days behind enemy lines. Diagnosed with shell shock, he was sent back to England to recuperate. In the hospital in Edinburgh he met the famous poet Siegfried Sassoon. Owen greatly admired Sassoon, declaring he was not worthy to light Sassoon’s pipe. But with encouragement from Sassoon, Owens began expressing his disgust with war in his own poetry, eventually eclipsing the fame of his friend.
When Sassoon returned from the front, Owen threatened to return to continue to document the savagery of war. Sassoon threatened to stab Owen in the leg to keep him from going. Owen notified his friend of his return to France after the fact.
When crossing a canal with his regiment, his superior officer was killed. Owen took command, manned a machine gun and inflicted many casualties. He was shot and killed almost exactly one week to the hour before the Armistice, and his mother received notice of his death as the local church bells announced the end of the war.
Because of his injuries, Owen could have remained in England but chose to return and fight. Though only 25 years old, his poetry reflects not only the reality of the terrors of war, but illustrate Owen’s dedication to the cause. Only five of his poems were published before his death. Others were later released in a book called “Poems”.
His poem “Dulce Decorum Est” is based on the writings of Horace. The phrase translates into “sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.” Unlike Horace, who once admitted to throwing down his shield and running away from battle, Wilfred Owen fought, was injured and returned to fight again, eventually giving his life in sacrifice for his country.
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Wilford OwenWednesday Sep 01, 2010
Leo Tolstoy on Biography Out Loud
Wednesday Sep 01, 2010
Wednesday Sep 01, 2010
Virginia Woolf declared him the greatest of all novelists. Dostoevsky, Proust, Faulkner, Nabakov Joyce all shared this same enthusiasm for this writer. Thomas Mann once declared, “Seldom did art work so much like nature.” He wrote a novel with 580 different characters, including some real historical figures. Who was this anarchist, pacifist, christian who is widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest novelists?
We’ll find out in a moment on Biography Out Loud.
Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Not only did this Russian writer change himself, but the world was never the same after his masterpiece “War and Peace”. Tolstoy was a realistic writer, trying to show the society of his time. He never thought of “War and Peace” as a novel, but told others his first novel was “Anna Karrenina” which he wrote eight years later.
Born in 1828, he toured Europe, witnessed a public execution and met with Victor Hugo and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, an anarchist living in Vienna.
On 23 September 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia Andreevna Bers, the daughter of a court physician, who was 16 years his junior. They had thirteen children, five of whom died during childhood. Their early married life was happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom to compose the literary masterpieces “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” with Sonya acting as his secretary, proof-reader and financial manager.
Tolstoy died of pneumonia at Astapovo station in 1910 after leaving home in the middle of winter at the age of 82. His death came only days after gathering the nerve to abandon his family and wealth and take up the path of a wandering ascetic,[citation needed] a path that he had agonized over pursuing for decades. He had not been at the peak of health before leaving home; his wife and daughters were all actively engaged in caring for him daily. He had been speaking and writing of his own death in the days preceding his departure from home, but fell ill at the train station not far from home. The station master took Tolstoy to his apartment, where his personal doctors were called to the scene. He was given injections of morphine and camphor, but later died. The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets at his funeral.
Leo Tolstoy once said, “The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.”
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Monday Jun 28, 2010
Walt Whitman -- Biography Out Loud
Monday Jun 28, 2010
Monday Jun 28, 2010
Welcome to Biography Out Loud. I am your host, Dane Allred.
Second of nine children, he was born in 1819. He had brothers named George Washington, Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, but he had the same name as his father. When he was six, he recalled being lifted up and given kiss on the cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette at a fourth of July celebration. Some of his earliest poetry was published in the New York Mirror. He started a newspaper in New York, sold it and then worked for many different newspapers, also working as a schoolmaster. When the “Free Soil Party” was founded in 1848, he was a delegate to the first convention. Who was this American poet born on Long Island, and often called the “father of free verse”?
We’ll find out in a moment on:
Biography Out Loud
By 1855, Walt Whitman had printed his first version of “Leaves of Grass”, a poem he continued to work to perfect throughout his entire life. No name is listed as author on this first edition, but in the text Whitman describes himself as "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest”. He paid for this first printing himself, publishing 795 copies. Ralph Waldo Emerson approved of the book, writing a five page letter to Walt Whitman praising the poem.
Whitman wrote “Leaves of Grass” as an attempt to make an American epic poem, using some of the cadence in the Bible and writing in free verse. Others condemned the book as overtly sexual, and the second edition was delayed due to the controversy. “Leaves of Grass” was reprinted many times, with Whitman revising it several times.
At the beginning of the Civil War, Whitman wrote the patriotic poem “Beat! Beat! Drums!” to help rally the North. Walt Whitman feared his brother had been injured in fighting and went to find him. He walked day and night, had his wallet stolen and after finding his brother with only a superficial cheek wound. But seeing the wounded and dead changed his course forever, and he left for Washington to serve as a part-time pay clerk and to volunteer as a nurse in the army hospitals. William Douglas O’Conner helped Whitman get a better job, and later defended the poet in a pamphlet call “The Good Grey Poet”, which would become Walt Whitman’s nickname. Whitman also published one of his most famous poems at this time, “Captain, O My Captain”, which was written to mark the death of Abraham Lincoln.
Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America”. For the 150th anniversary of “Leaves of Grass”, the literary critic, Harold Bloom wrote:
“You can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular Scripture of the United States. They might include Melville's Moby-Dick, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Emerson's two series of Essays and The Conduct of Life. None of those, not even Emerson's, are as central as the first edition of Leaves of Grass.”
Whitman died in 1892, suffering from bronchial pneumonia the last years of his life. It is estimated he had only one-eighth of normal breathing capacity, and an autopsy revealed a large abscess on his chest. At his public viewing, the casket was almost hidden from the quantity of flowers.
Beat! Beat! Drums!
by Walt Whitman
Beat! beat! drums! Blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows—through the doors—burst like a force of armed men, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride; Nor the peaceful farmer any peace plowing his field or gathering his grain; So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow. Beat! beat! drums! Blow! bugles! blow! Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets; Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds; No bargainers' bargains by day—no brokers or speculators. Would they continue? Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing? Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge? Then rattle quicker, heavier, drums—and bugles wilder blow.Beat! beat! drums! Blow! bugles! blow! Make no parley—stop for no expostulation; Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer; Mind not the old man beseeching the young man; Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties. Recruit! recruit? Make the very trestles shake under the dead, where they lie in their shrouds awaiting the hearses. So strong you thump, O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Walt WhitmanThursday Jun 24, 2010
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Thursday Jun 24, 2010
Thursday Jun 24, 2010
Welcome to Biography Out Loud. I am your host, Dane Allred.
Born in 1906, she knew William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, Edgar Allen Poe, and was also married to a famous poet. Her poetry greatly influenced Emily Dickenson, and while she was already famous when she married, most people are more familiar with her married name. Who is this poet, called one of the great Victorian writers?
We’ll find out in a moment on:
Biography Out Loud
Elizabeth Barrett is perhaps best known by her married name, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but she was a famous poet before she married. At the age of 20, she became ill with an undiagnosed disease which left her weak and frail. She took morphine for the pain, eventually becoming addicted to the medication.
Though her family was wealthy when she was born, reversals in the family fortune forced the sale of a large farm. The end of slavery in Jamaica also affected the family income, since a sugar plantation they owned was run by slave labor. During this time Elizabeth Barrett became famous, rubbing shoulders with many other famous poets of the time.
It was suggested by her physician she relocate nearer the ocean, and convincing her brother to accompany her, she later felt responsible for his death. He drowned in a sailing accident in Torquay on the Devonshire coast.
A voracious reader and scholar, she learned Greek and Hebrew. In 1833, she published a translation of “Prometheus Bound”, a work by the Greek dramatist Aeschylus.
In 1842, she wrote a book of poetry called “The Cry of the Children”, which later influenced changes in the child labor laws. In 1844, now a poet with a world-wide reputation, she received letters from Robert Browning which declared his love for her poetry. He met with her and a great romance developed. He wrote her 574 letters in the next twenty months. She was six years his senior, and was not convinced of his devotion, detailing her doubts in “The Sonnets from the Portuguese”. After a long courtship, they were married and went to Italy to live. Elizabeth was disowned by her father who did the same to each child who married.
She wrote of this time in her life, “The Mrs. Browning of popular imagination was a sweet, innocent young woman who suffered endless cruelties at the hands of a tyrannical papa but who nonetheless had the good fortune to fall in love with a dashing and handsome poet named Robert Browning. She finally escaped the dungeon of Wimpole Street, eloped to Italy, and lived happily ever after.” While in Italy, her health improved and at the age of 43 she gave birth to their son Pen. They were successful and lived comfortably in Italy, becoming local celebrities who were often stopped and asked for autographs.
Edgar Allen Poe reviewed one of her poems and said "her poetic inspiration is the highest—we can conceive of nothing more august. Her sense of Art is pure in itself." Inspired by her poem entitled “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship”, Poe borrowed the meter of the poem and used it in “The Raven”. She later praised Poe’s work on “The Raven”.
After the death of William Wordsworth, it was thought Elizabeth Barrett Browning might be named Poet Laureate, but Tennyson was appointed. Her health failed again after the death of her father and sister. Weak and depressed, she died on June 29th, 1861. Buried in Florence, “On Monday July 1 the shops in the section of the city around Casa Guidi were closed, while Elizabeth was mourned with unusual demonstrations.”
Perhaps her best known poem is “How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count the Ways”. In a letter to a Mr. Chorley, a friend and critic, she said, “I never wrote to please any of you, not even to please my own husband.” She also insisted she wrote from the heart and from an obligation to tell the truth. She once said, “Every genuine artist in the world goes to heaven for speaking the truth.”
In Sonnet 14, she asks to be “loved for love’s sake.”
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile —her look —her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity'.
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Elizabeth Barrett BrowningFriday Jun 18, 2010
Biography Out Loud -- Robert Frost
Friday Jun 18, 2010
Friday Jun 18, 2010
This author once said “By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be a boss and work 12 hours a day.” Though he delivered newspapers and was a cobbler, farmer and the light bulb filament changer in a factory, he always felt his true calling was as a poet. He also worked as a teacher, and won four Pulitzer prizes for poetry.
He is renowned for his ability to capture rural life and colloquial language. Who is this rural poet, regarded as one of the most famous American authors? We’ll find out in a moment on:
Biography Out Loud
Robert Frost’s epitaph quotes a line from one of his poems: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world." Best known for his poem “The Road Not Taken”, the lines most often cited from this poem include “two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
He sold his first poem “My Butterfly: An Elegy”, at the age of 20 for fifteen dollars. This early success caused him to propose to Elinor. She refused this first proposal, but later agreed to marriage. They were in England when World War I broke out, and Robert Frost then returned with his family to what would be the family homestead. Frost met Ezra Pound while in England. Pound helped promote Robert Frost’s poetry by reviewing his first book of poetry, but their friendship waned in later years. Frost said of life, “In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.”
His father died when he was 11, his mother when he was 26, and he also had to commit his sister to an institution. He and his wife had six children, but was only survived by two daughters. He buried his wife in 1938. Though faced with much tragedy in his life, he said, “Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” He also said, “The best way out is always through.”
He taught later in his life at the University of Michigan and received more than 40 honorary degrees in his lifetime. Of education he once said, “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper.”
Robert Frost performed a reading of his poetry at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy at the age of eighty-six. Frost enjoyed reading his works, and once said, “I look at a poem as a performance.” Of Robert Frost, President Kennedy said, "He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding."
His use of common language to communicate in poetry makes Frost one of the most famous American poets. His wit has also been frequently quoted. He once said, “A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.”
He worked on various farms his entire life, commenting he had no regular writing schedule. he said, “I don’t have hours; I don’t work at it, you know. I’m not a farmer, that’s no pose of mine. But I have farmed some, and I putter around. And I walk and live with other people. Like to talk a lot.”
Though his life was checkered with loss, he once said, “I never knew how many disadvantages anyone needed to get anywhere in the world. No psychology will ever tell you who needs a whip and who needs a spur to win races.”
When asked once about the creative process, Robert Frost said, “It’s just the same as when you feel a joke coming. You see somebody coming down the street that you’re accustomed to abuse, and feel it rising in you, something to say as you pass each other. Coming over him the same way. And where do these thoughts come from?”
In 1942, Robert Frost received his fourth Pulitzer prize for his book “A Winter Tree” He is the first person to win four Pulitzer prizes. He also once had patchwork quilts made from the academic hoods he had received with his honorary degrees.
In a memorable couplet, Frost once said, “It’s from their having stood contrasted, That good and bad so long have lasted.”
Frost was born in 1874, but maintained his entire life he was born in 1875. His friends threw a 50th birthday party for him as he turned fifty-one, and he was honored by the US Senate for his 75th birthday, although he was seventy-six. Robert Frost, one of the most accomplished American poets, died in 1963.
He once quipped, “Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Robert FrostTuesday Jun 08, 2010
Biography Out Loud -- O. Henry
Tuesday Jun 08, 2010
Tuesday Jun 08, 2010
Welcome to Biography Out Loud. I am your host, Dane Allred.
He spent time in the Ohio penitentiary. He is better known by his pen name, which some have said is made from the phrase “Ohio penitentiary”. He worked as a pharmacist, sheep-herder, cook, babysitter, draftsman, a teller and a bookkeeper. He was married, and though his wife had tuberculosis when they were married, she lived ten more years. They had children, and participated in music and theatre groups. This author fled the country when he was accused of embezzlement, spending time in Honduras and New Orleans. His most famous work may be “The Gift of the Magi”. In a moment, we examine another exciting literary life on
Biography Out Loud
William Sydney Porter was three when his mother died of tuberculosis. Though better known as O. Henry, he would spend his formative years in North Carolina, moving to Texas when he was twenty in hopes of getting rid of a persistent cough. He did get better, and worked on ranches, at banks, and as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office. O. Henry continued to make contributions to magazines and newspapers and started a magazine called “The Rolling Stone” which he eventually stopped producing. He then began writing for the Houston Post, often sitting in hotel lobbies observing and talking to people he would meet there.
Federal investigators found discrepancies from his work in Austin, and Porter was indicted for embezzlement. The day before the trial was to take place, O. Henry fled Texas, going to New Orleans and then to Honduras. When he learned his wife was dying, he returned to Texas, where he surrendered to authorities. O. Henry once said of his self-exile, “You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a women's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.”
A few months later his wife died, he was put on trial and eventually found guilty of embezzlement, and was sentenced to five years. He spent the next three years in the Ohio Penitentiary, being released early for good behavior in 1901. Having a friend forward his stories from New Orleans, neither his publishers nor his daughter knew he was spending time behind bars. His daughter, Margaret was told he had been away on business.
After moving to New York to be near his publishers, he wrote 381 short stories. His stories have surprise endings, and while critics often panned his work, William Sydney Porter once said, “Write what you like; there is no other rule.”
There are two versions of how his pen name was selected. Porter once wrote he and a friend came up with it one day, but author and scholar Guy Davenport offers another explanation. He says "The pseudonym that he began to write under in prison is constructed from the first two letters of Ohio and the second, third and last two letters of penitentiary." O. Henry also once said the “O” stood for “Olivier”, what he called the French version of Oliver.
Whatever the source, O. Henry is most well-known for his poignant stories like “The Last Leaf”; where a sickly girl wishes to see the last leaf fall from a tree outside her window, and it is discovered it has been painted there. The girl recovers; the artist who hoped to paint a masterpiece died from painting it there one cold night. He says of death in this story, “The lonsomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey.”
Retold on radio, television and other movie adaptations, “The Gift of the Magi” is a story of two poor lovebirds who sacrifice their prized possessions to get a Christmas present for each other, with a nice twist at the end. A classic phrase from the story is “Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.”
Two other famous stories are “The Cop and the Anthem”; where Soapy, a homeless wanderer in the city wants to be arrested so he can spend the cold winter in jail, but can’t get arrested no matter how he tries. Another Porter classic is “The Ransom of Red Chief”; where a kidnapped child is so much trouble the kidnappers end up paying to get the father to take him back.
O. Henry was reunited later with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Lindsey Coleman. They were married briefly before his health and writing began to deteriorate.
A heavy drinker later in life, William Sydney Porter died of cirrhosis of the liver. A writing award carrying his name has been presented every year to outstanding short story writers since 1919. If you hear a short story with a surprise ending, check to see if O. Henry is the author.
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece O HenryTuesday Jun 01, 2010
Mark Twain on Biography Out Loud
Tuesday Jun 01, 2010
Tuesday Jun 01, 2010
He said, “I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together." This great American author did die in 1910 with the next visit of Haley’s Comet, and though he is better known by his pen name, his characters are a symbol of American humor and ingenuity. He was first author to type a manuscript on a new invention called “the typewriter”. In a moment, we’ll become better acquainted with the writer of what has been called “The Great American Novel”--
Today on Biography
Samuel Langehorne Clemens is better known as Mark Twain, a pen name which also takes its meaning from measurements of river depth. Calling out “by the Mark Twain” on a riverboat means the sounding rope is out two fathoms, or twain. This meant there was 12 feet of water in the river. Wherever he came up with the name, Samuel Clemens produced some of the most memorable characters in American Literature in books like “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn” – a book some call the Great American Novel. Working in his youth as a printer’s apprentice after his father’s death, he later worked as a printer in several major U.S. cities. He said, “Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.” In a related vein, he said, “When in doubt, tell the truth” and “If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.”
He then spent two years learning the intricacies of the Mississippi to qualify as a steamboat pilot. He once remarked, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” He convinced his brother to come and work on the river with him.
Clemens had an unusual dream two weeks before the death of his brother Henry, foreseeing how his brother would die in an explosion while working on a steamboat. After the Civil War began, travel on the Mississippi was significantly less, and Samuel Clemens then joined his brother on a trip to Nevada, where Orion Clemens was to serve as secretary to the governor of the Nevada territory. Mark Twain documents his many adventures through the west and his other travels, first becoming known for his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
A very successful writer, Twain was notorious for investing in new inventions and spending all of his earnings. He once said, “I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.”
After a world tour giving lectures, Samuel Clemens returned to the United States in 1900 with his debts paid. He was a promoter of the abolition of slavery, and spoke in favor of granting the right to vote to women.
Famous for his wit, he once said of the government, “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
He also quipped, “Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.”
He also once said, “The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.”
Samuel Clemens helped us laugh about the problems of the world, and as he once said, “Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.”
When one of his cousins died, reports circulated that Samuel Clemens was dead. He replied, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Once hearing himself praised in an introduction he said, “I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.”
Ernest Hemingway once said of Mark Twain, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
Mark Twain’s prediction that he would go out with Haley’s Comet was prescient. He died one day after the comet made its closest approach. Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said, "Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature."
Samuel Clemens once contemplated his choice of final destinations and concluded, “..[H]eaven for climate, Hell for society.”
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Mark TwainTuesday May 25, 2010
Anton Chekhov
Tuesday May 25, 2010
Tuesday May 25, 2010
Welcome to Biography
As a doctor, he saved lives, delivered babies, dispensed medication. Yet he refused to let other doctors diagnose his tuberculosis. He would later die at an early age, only 44 years old. But he is best remembered for his famous plays, which were said to offer a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text.” He once said, “What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won’t seem important at all”. You may recognize his most famous plays, “The Cherry Orchard”, “Uncle Vanya”, “The Seagull” and “The Three Sisters”. He worked closely with Constantin Stanislavski, the Russian actor and director. Who was this famous doctor, playwright, and author of many, many short stories? We’ll find out next on “Biography Out Loud”.
Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright lived from 1860 to 1904. He has been called “the greatest short-story writer in the history of world literature” by the Encyclopedia Britannica, and influenced many other writers. Trained as a doctor, he used his interactions with all different kinds of people to populate his stories.
He once said, “I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly it's not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity.”
His father went bankrupt and left the family, fleeing to Moscow to avoid debtor’s prison. Anton Chekhov helped his family and paid for his education by tutoring, selling goldfinches, and also sold short stories to local newspapers. He once said, “When you live on cash, you understand the limits of the world around which you navigate each day. Credit leads into a desert with invisible boundaries.” After becoming a doctor, he made little money treating patients and he charged the poor nothing.
Though he had many struggles in life, he said, “We learn about life not from pluses alone, but from minuses as well.” He also said, “The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist.”
He wrote about poor conditions on Sakhalin Island, a prison colony run by Russia. He was disgusted with the conditions he found there, where children were imprisoned with their parents. “Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.”
He was disappointed with the first production of “The Seagull”, but Constantine Stanislavski restaged it in Moscow to critical praise.
Success with “The Cherry Orchard”, “The Three Sisters” and “Uncle Vanya” helped Chekhov gain national recognition, and then international praise. Raymond Carver called him “the greatest short story writer who ever lived”.
He worked for over a year on some plays, and once said, “You need to work continually day and night, to read ceaselessly, to study, to exercise your will.... Each hour is precious.” Optimistically, he proclaimed, “There is no Monday which will not give its place to Tuesday.”
Of his urge to write he said, “I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.” Once he became a successful writer he said, “I don’t care for success. The ideas sitting in my head are annoyed by, and envious of, that which I’ve already written.”
Of marriage, Anton Chekhov said, ““If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.” He did marry Olga Knipper, an actress he had first met in rehearsals of his play “The Seagull”. He also said, “I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious.”
Constantly plagued by tuberculosis, he moved to Yalta to improve his health. He once said of illness, “It’s even pleasant to be sick when you know that there are people who await your recovery as they might await a holiday.”
He died at the age of 44 from the tuberculosis which had plagued him for years. Of death he said, “Death can only be profitable: there’s no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.”
At the end of the “Three Sisters”, Anton Chekhov writes, “Time will pass on, and we shall depart for ever, we shall be forgotten; they will forget our faces, voices, and even how many there were of us, but our sufferings will turn into joy for those who will live after us, happiness and peace will reign on earth, and people will remember with kindly words, and bless those who are living now. Our life is not yet at an end. Let us live.”
Anton Chekhov continues to live through his works, as one of the world’s greatest authors.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
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