My Science School

               Gerald Manley Hopkins was recognized as a great Victorian poet only after his death. His poems are about religion, nature and sadness.

               Hopkins was born on July 28th, 1844. In 1874, he was admitted to St. Beuno’s College, where he studied theology.

               Saddened by a shipwreck that claimed the life of five Franciscan nuns, Hopkins wrote ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, in 1875. The language and rhythm of his sonnets were remarkably original. ‘The Windhover’, his great sonnet, attracted the attention of critics. ‘Carrion Comfort’ was the first in a series of sonnets he began writing in 1885.

               Typhoid fever claimed the life of the poet on 8th June 1889. His grave is at the Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

               A volume of his poems was published posthumously in 1918. A second collection appeared in 1930, and won him recognition as a great poet.

 

            Thomas Hardy left behind an outstanding body of work. Hardy devoted the last three decades of his life to writing poetry. However Hardy is better known as a novelist.

            Thomas Hardy was born on 2nd June 1840, in Stinsford. His father was a builder. Hardy received training in architecture at Dorchester. In 1862, he gained admission to King’s College, London.

            Though Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, his first book of verse titled ‘Wessex Poems’ was published only in 1898. Hardy wrote lyrics, ballads, satire, dramatic monologues, and dialogue. ‘Drummer Hodge’ and ‘The Man He Killed’ are his important war poems. These poems revolve around the Boer Wars and World War I.

            ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’, ‘The Mayor of Caster bridge’, ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’, and ‘Jude the Obscure’ were Hardy’s great novels.

            Following the death of his wife in 1912, a grief stricken Hardy, wrote his famous ‘The Poems of 1912-13’. ‘The Poems of 1912-13’ were published as part of ‘Satires of Circumstance’, in1914. Hardy passed away in 1928.Younger poets regarded Hardy as a mentor. After his death, Thomas Hardy’s poems won praise from poets like Ezra Pound, and W.H. Auden. 

               Khalil Gibran is the third best selling poet in the world after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.

               Gibran was born in Lebanon. As a young man, Gibran moved with his family to the United States. He began writing in both English and Arabic.

               Gibran was a great poet. A literary and political rebel, he was a key figure in the renaissance or renewal of modern Arabic literature. Gibran broke with tradition by writing prose poetry. He was inspired by Blake, Nietzsche and the Bible.

               ‘The Prophet’ is Khalil Gibran’s great work. It is a book of philosophical essays written in poetic prose. ‘The Prophet’ was published in 1923 but received a lukewarm reception. The popularity of the book rose in 1930.

               His other major works are ‘The Madman’, ‘The Forerunner’ and ‘Sand and Foam’. Gibran passed away in New York City on April 10th, 1931. 

          The novels of D.H. Lawrence brought him fame, and his verse influenced English poetry. His poems are relatively lesser known. However, they were strikingly original and anticipated the after effects of World War II.

          D.H. Lawrence was born on September 11th, 1885, in England. At the age of eighteen, D.H. Lawrence entered the University College in Nottingham.

          He found time to write poems while working on his first novel. His poems tended to be on the shorter side. Lawrence wrote around 800 poems in his lifetime.

          ‘Dreams old and Nascent’ were two of his early published poems. These poems were printed in the English Review, a journal.

          Lawrence became a full time writer following the publication of his debut novel, ‘The White Peacock’. His novels like ‘The Rainbow’ were controversial.

          Lawrence travelled frequently after World War I, and wrote travelogues. D. H. Lawrence suffered from tuberculosis. In his last months, he wrote numerous poems, reviews, and essays. He passed away on 2nd March 1930 in France.

          In ‘Nettles’, his final work, Lawrence attacked the morality prevalent in England in that day and age. A nettle was published 11 days after his death. 

 

            Ezra Pound was a master writer who mentored several great writers. T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway benefited from the literary wisdom of Ezra Pound.

            Ezra Pound was born in the US on 30th October, 1885 but spent his life in Europe. Pound played a leading role in the growth of imagism. Imagism was a literary movement inspired by classical Chinese and Japanese poetry.

            ‘Homage to Sextus Propertius’ published in the book ‘Quia Pauper Amavi’ was a brilliant poetic work of Ezra Pound. ‘Ripostes’, ‘Hugh Selwyn Mauberley’ and ‘The Cantos’ are the other great works of Ezra Pound.

            Two of his works, ‘Personae’ and ‘Exultations’, were published in 1909. Pound spent the last phase of his life in Italy.

            Ezra Pound passed away on November 1st, 1972 and buried in Isola di San Michele. 

            Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26th, 1888 in Missouri. He grew up in St. Louis, and was a student at Harvard.

            In 1914, at the age of 25, he moved from the United States to England. Eliot married, and settled there. He became a British national at the age of 39.

            Eliot’s work, ‘The Waste Land’ was a landmark in modern poetry. It is regarded as a seminal poetic work of the twentieth century. ‘The Waste Land’, made Eliot a world famous poet.

           It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound. Pound had recognized the genius of Eliot, and aided him in his early days as a poet. ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ was published in 1915 with the help of Pound. ‘The Hollow Men’, ‘Ash Wednesday’, and ‘Four Quartets’, are his other important works.

            ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ and ‘The Cocktail Party’ are the standout plays of Eliot. T.S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1948. He was selected by the Nobel Prize Committee for his outstanding contribution to poetry. T.S. Eliot died on January 4th, 1965.

 

 

            Siegfried Sassoon displayed bravery in battle and greatness in his poetry. He won the Military Cross, and was in the army when he wrote his anti-war poetry. He dealt with the wretchedness of the trenches and poked fun at the false patriotism of the people who triggered the war, in his poetry.

            Sassoon was born on 8th September in Matfield, Kent. His father was a rich Jewish businessman, and his mother was an Anglo Catholic.

            ‘The Old Huntsman’ and ‘Counter-Attack’ were classics of his anti-war poetry. ‘Collected Poems’ and ‘The Path to Peace’ were also among the notable works of Sassoon. Later, Sassoon turned to devotional poetry.

            ‘Sherston Trilogy’, his autobiography in the form of fiction, won praise from all quarters. Sassoon retired from the army due to ill health, after the war.

            Sassoon was conferred the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year of 1951.

            Sassoon succumbed to stomach cancer a week before his 81st birthday. 

 

            Wilfred Owen was killed on the battlefield, and his poems were hardly read during his lifetime. Born in Oswestry on the Welsh borders on March 18th, 1893, Owen had a burning desire to become a poet at a young age. He tried to write poems. Keats and Shelley were his early influences. Owen developed a liking for rhyming patterns, and these patterns became a feature of his poetry. However, he published only five poems during his lifetime.

            Siegfried Sassoon, the poet, was his bosom friend. Sassoon had a huge influence on Owen’s poetry. Almost all of Owen’s poems were written between August 1917 and September 1918. World War I was raging at the time. ‘Insensibility’, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ and the ‘Strange Meeting’ are the outstanding poems of Owen. Owen died on the battlefield in 1918. 

 

             T.E. Hulme was a poet who was famous for his literary theories. His theories gave authority and direction to the poetic experiments of the Imagist Movement that describes images with simple language.

             Ezra Pound, the leader of the Imagists, published five of Hulme’s poems in his book ‘Ripostes’. The poems appear in the part titled ‘The Complete Poetical Works of T.E. Hulme’.

             Though Hulme wrote little poetry, his verse had a great influence on Pound, Eliot and other modern poets. Hulme was born on 16 September, 1883. He was dismissed for rowdyism from St John’s College, Cambridge in 1904. The majority of T.E. Hulme’s works were published after his death on 28th September, 1917. 

 

            E. E. Cummings wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays.

            Cummings was born in Massachusetts, on October 14th, 1894. He began writing poems by the age of ten. Cummings learned Latin and Greek at the Cambridge Latin High School.

            His experiments with form, punctuation, spelling, and syntax resulted in the creation of ground-breaking poetry. In 1917, his poetry appeared in the anthology titled ‘Eight Harvard Poets’. His poems, seven in all, were published by The Dial, a journal. ‘Buffalo Bill’s’ was one of these poems. Cummings wrote 12 volumes of verse in his lifetime. ‘Complete Poems’ published in 1968 is a collection of these poems in two volumes. Cummings, along with his friend, served as a volunteer ambulance driver in France during World War I. However, the French authorities thought he was a spy and held him in a prison camp.

            Later, these charges were found to be baseless, and the poet was released. Cummings passed away on September 3rd, 1962.

            He is remembered as an eminent poet of 20th century English literature. In the US, his poems were second only to Robert Frost’s, in popularity.

 

               Federico Garcia Lorca was a legendary Spanish author.

               Lorca was born on 5th June 1898. Federico Garcia Rodriguez, his father, was a landowner. His mother, Vicenta Lorca Romero, was a teacher.

               Lorca belonged to ‘Generacion del 27’, the great group of artists that included Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel. ‘Romancero Gitano’, was a remarkable collection of poetry that brought him lasting fame.

               First published in 1928, ‘Romancero Gitano’ was reprinted seven times during Lorca’s lifetime. ‘Impresiones y paisajes’, his first book, was published in 1918. ‘Libro de Poemas’, is a collection of poems based on Spanish folklore.

               His other important poetic works are ‘Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias’, and the tragedies ‘Bodas de Sangre’, and ‘La casa de Bernarda Alba’.

              He toured Spain in 1931, with the theatre group La Barraca. On August 16, 1936, at a time when the Spanish Civil War was brewing, he was arrested from Granada. He was never seen alive again. Fascist forces may have murdered Lorca on August 18th or 19th, 1936. In spite of detailed investigations, his mortal remains were never discovered. 

               Allen Tate was a great poet. He was born on November 19th, 1899, in Winchester, US. Tate graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1922. He was first married to Caroline Gordon, a novelist in 1925.

               Tate was a founder-editor of The Fugitive, a poetry magazine printed at Nashville, from 1922 to 1925.

               In 1922, Tate read T.S. Eliot, and was struck by their similarities in political thought. Tate’s early work was also influenced by Baudelaire, Corbiere, Ezra Pound, and Edwin Arlington Robinson. In 1928, Tate published his first book of poetry, ‘Mr. Pope and Other Poems’ which contained his most famous poem, ‘Ode to the Confederate Dead’.

               That same year, Tate also published a biography ‘Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier’. ‘Seasons of the Soul’, and ‘The Buried Lake’ are Tate’s other acclaimed works. Besides being a poet Tate was a prominent critic too.

               Allen Tate passed away in 1979. Tate had been a mentor to many young poets during his lifetime. 

               Langston Hughes was a pioneering genius of jazz poetry. Jazz poetry has a jazz-like rhythm, and plays with catchphrases of jazz music.

               Hughes played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth and revival of African-American Arts.

               Hughes was born on February 1, 1902, in Missouri, US. ‘The Weary Blues’ was the first poetry collection of Langston Hughes. His greatest poem ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’, appears in this collection. His first novel, ‘Not Without Laughter’, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

               Hughes was the author of the Simple Book series. ‘Simple Speaks His Mind’, ‘Simple Stakes a Claim’, ‘Simple Takes a Wife’, and ‘Simple’s Uncle Sam’, are some famous Simple books.

               Hughes was a playwright too, and he wrote many plays in his time. Hughes partnered Zora Neale Hurston to write the play, ‘Mule Bone’.

               His autobiography, ‘The Big Sea’ was praised by critics and readers alike. Hughes wrote about the music in the lives of the working-class blacks in America, and their joys and sorrows.

               Hughes was struck down by prostate cancer on May 22nd, 1967. 

 

               ‘Compose aloud; poetry is a sound’ so goes the first line of ‘Advice to Young Poets’, written by Basil Bunting.

               Born in England on 1st March 1900, Bunting had a liking for music, and a passion for the sound of poetry. He emphasized the importance of reading poetry aloud.

               His poem ‘Briggflatts’, published in 1966, brought Bunting fame as a modern poet. ‘Briggflatts’, is a long, autobiographical poem in five sections.

               ‘Villon’ was one of his sonatas. The name stresses the aural qualities or the sound of the poem. ‘Attis: or, Something Missing’, ‘Aus Dem Zweiten Reich’, ‘The Well of Lycopolis’, and ‘The Spoils’ were his other famous sonatas.

               Basil Bunting worked for the British military intelligence in Persia during World War II. In 1948, after the end of the war, he switched jobs, and became the correspondent for The Times of London, in Iran.

               However, he was forced to leave by Mohammad Mossadegh, the Prime Minister of Iran, in 1952. Basil Bunting passed away in 1985, at Hexham, in England. 

               William Wordsworth is an idol to poetry lovers round the world. His intense love for nature was reflected in his poems. Wordsworth spent the major part of his adult life in the scenic Lake District of England.

               William Wordsworth was born on 7th April 1770 in England. He was a pupil of Hawkshead Grammar School where he discovered his love for poetry. He went on to attend the St. John’s College in Cambridge.

               His first poems were published in ‘An Evening Walk’, and ‘Descriptive Sketches’, a collection of poems. Wordsworth’s meeting with Samuel Taylor Coleridge proved to be a turning point in his life and in the history of poetry.

               He collaborated with Coleridge to create ‘Lyrical Ballads’, in 1798. ‘Lyrical Ballads’, is poetry classic ‘The Prelude’, perhaps his greatest work, is partly autobiographical, and focuses on his early years. The poem went through several editions.

               The Prelude was published after his death. During his lifetime it was known as the poem by Coleridge. ‘The Borderers’ was the only play penned by Wordsworth. It was a tragedy in verse.

               Wordsworth died of pleurisy on 23rd April, 1850. Wordsworth had the honour of being Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death.