German Poet Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 1700-1800

Short Story: Goethe describes his happy and sheltered childhood in his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit (1811–33). In 1765 he went to Leipzig to study law. There he spent his time in the usual student dissipations, which perhaps contributed to a hemorrhage that required a long convalescence at Frankfurt. His earliest lyric poems, set to music, were published in 1769. In 1770–71 he completed his law studies at Strasbourg, where the acquaintance of Herder filled him with enthusiasm for Shakespeare, for Germany’s medieval past, and for the German folk song. Goethe’s lyric poems for Friederike Brion, daughter of the pastor of nearby Sesenheim, were written at this time as new texts for folk-song melodies. Among the lasting influences of Goethe’s youth were J. J. Rousseau and Spinoza, who appealed to Goethe’s mystic and poetic feeling for nature in its ever-changing aspects. It was in this period that Goethe began his lifelong study of animals and plants and his research in biological morphology. 3Goethe first attracted public notice with the drama Götz von Berlichingen (1773) (see Berlichingen, Götz von), a pure product of Sturm und Drang. Still more important was the epistolary novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774, tr. The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1957) which Goethe, on the verge of suicide, wrote after his unrequited love for Charlotte Buff. Werther gave him immediate fame and was widely translated. While the writing had helped Goethe regain stability, the novel’s effect on the public was the opposite; it encouraged morbid sensibility.

The Weimar Years

In 1775, Goethe was invited to visit Charles Augustus, duke of Saxe-Weimar, at whose court he was to spend the rest of his life. For ten years Goethe was chief minister of state at Weimar. He later retained only the directorship of the state theater and the scientific institutions.

Italian and French Influences

A trip to Italy (1786–88) fired his enthusiasm for the classical ideal, as Goethe tells us in his travel account Die italienische Reise (1816) and in Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert [Winckelmann and his century] (1805). Also written under the classical impact were the historical drama Egmont (1788), well known for Beethoven’s incidental music; Römische Elegien (1788); the psychological drama Torquato Tasso (1789); the domestic epic Hermann und Dorothea (1797); and the final, poetic version (1787) of the drama Iphigenie auf Tauris. In 1792 Goethe accompanied Duke Charles Augustus as official historian in the allied campaign against revolutionary France. He appreciated the principles of the French Revolution but resented the methods employed. A reformer in his own small state, Goethe wished to see social change accomplished from above. Later he refused to share in the patriotic fervor that swept Germany during the Napoleonic Wars.

Novels and Poetry

His novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809, tr. Elective Affinities, 1963) is one of his most significant novels, but perhaps his best-known work in that genre is the Wilhelm Meister series. The novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre [the apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister] (1796), became the prototype of the German Bildungsroman, or novel of character development. In 1829 the last installment of Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre [Wilhelm Meister’s journeyman years], a series of episodes, was published. 8His most enduring work, indeed, one of the peaks of world literature, is the dramatic poem Faust. The first part was published in 1808, the second shortly after Goethe’s death. Goethe recast the traditional Faust legend and made it one of the greatest poetic and philosophic creations the world possesses. His main departure from the original is no doubt the salvation of Faust, the erring seeker, in the mystic last scene of the second part. Many women passed through Goethe’s life, with Charlotte von Stein probably the most intellectual of them. He married (1806) Christiane Vulpius (1765–1816), who had borne him a son. Goethe’s unsuccessful marriage offer (1822) to young Ulrike von Levetzow inspired his poems Trilogie der Leidenschaft [trilogy of passion]. Westöstlicher Diwan (1819), a collection of Goethe’s finest lyric poetry, was inspired by his young friend Marianne von Willemer, who figures as Suleika in the cycle. The Diwan strikes a new note in German poetry, introducing Eastern elements derived from Goethe’s reading of the Persian poet Hafiz.

Other Accomplishments

Increasingly aloof from national, political, or even literary partisanship, Goethe became more and more the Olympian divinity, to whose shrine at Weimar all Europe flocked. The variety and extent of his accomplishments and activities were monumental. Goethe knew French, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and translated works by Diderot, Voltaire, Cellini, Byron, and others. His approach to science was one of sensuous experience and poetic intuition. Well known is his stubborn attack on Newton’s theory of light in Zur Farbenlehre (1810). A corresponding treatise on acoustics remained unfinished. An accomplished amateur musician, Goethe conducted instrumental and vocal ensembles and directed opera performances in Weimar. His search for an operatic composer with whom he could collaborate failed; although many of his operetta librettos were composed, none achieved lasting fame. Goethe’s exquisite lyrical poems, often inspired by existing songs, challenged contemporary composers to give their best in music, and such songs as “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” [only the lonely heart], “Kennst du das Land” [know’st thou the land], and Erlkönig were among the song texts most often set to music. 12 Goethe’s aim was to make his life a concrete example of the full range of human potential, and he succeeded as few others did. The friendship of Friedrich von Schiller and his death (1805) made a deep impression on Goethe. He is buried, alongside Schiller, in the ducal crypt at Weimar. The opinions of Goethe are recorded not only in his own writings but also in conversations recorded by his secretary J. P. Eckermann and in extensive correspondence with the composer Zelter and with Schiller, Byron, Carlyle, Manzoni, and others. It would be difficult to overestimate Goethe’s influence on the subsequent history of German literature.

The Holy Longing - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Canadian Poet Elizabeth Brewster 1922

Elizabeth Brewster was born in Chipman, New Brunswick on August 26, 1922. She received her BA from the University of New Brunswick, her MA from Harvard, her BLS from the University of Toronto, and her PhD from Indiana University. She has published more than twenty collections of poetry. In 1995, Footnotes to the Book of Job was nominated for a Governor General's Award. Also in 1995, Brewster received the Lifetime Award for Excellence in the Arts. Brewster was a founding member of The Fiddlehead, and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, now resident in Victoria, BC. She is a lifetime member of the League of Canadian Poets.

WORKS

POETRY Collected Poems of Elizabeth Brewster. Ottawa: Oberon, 2003. Jacob's Dream. Ottawa: Oberon, 2002. Burning Bush. Ottawa: Oberon, 2000. Garden of Sculpture. Ottawa: Oberon, 1998. Away From Home. Ottawa: Oberon, 1995. Footnotes to the Book of Job. Ottawa: Oberon, 1995. Wheel of Change. Ottawa: Oberon, 1993. The Invention of Truth. Ottawa: Oberon, 1991. Spring Again. Ottawa: Oberon, 1990. Entertaining Angels. Ottawa: Oberon, 1988. Visitations. Ottawa: Oberon, 1987. Selected Poems of Elizabeth Brewster 1944-1977. Ottawa: Oberon, 1985. Selected Poems of Elizabeth Brewster 1977-1984. Ottawa: Oberon, 1985. A House Full of Women. Ottawa: Oberon, 1983. Junction. Windsor, ON: Black Moss Press, 1983. Digging In. Ottawa: Oberon, 1982. The Way Home. Ottawa: Oberon, 1982. Sometimes I Think of Moving. Ottawa: Oberon, 1977. In Search of Eros. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1974. Sunrise North. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1974. Passage of Summer: Selected Poems. Toronto: Ryerson, 1969. Roads, And Other Poems. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1957. East Coast. Toronto: Ryerson, 1951. Lillooet. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1951. OTHER WORKS The Ballad of Princess Caraboo. with Nancy Telfer. Oakville, ON: F. Harris Music, 1983. It's Easy to Fall On the Ice. Ottawa: Oberon, 1977. The Sisters. Ottawa: Oberon, 1974.

CRITICISM

Adamek, Anna. Rev. of Burning Bush, by Elizabeth Brewster. ARC 46 (2001): 84-85. Baker, Janet. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Journal of Canadian Poetry 5 (1990): 25-29. Beaton, Virginia. Rev. of The Invention Of Truth, by Elizabeth Brewster. Books In Canada 21.4 (1992): 50. Bethune, Andrew. Rev. of Footnotes to the Book of Job, by Elizabeth Brewster. Journal of Canadian Poetry 12 (1997): 21-27. Bowling, Tim. Rev. of Garden of Sculpture, by Elizabeth Brewster. NeWest Review 24.4 (1999): 31-32. Brewster, Elizabeth. “The Future of Poetry in Canada.” Horizon Writing of the Canadian Prairie. Ed. K. Mitchell. Toronto: Oxford, 1977. Comin, Anne. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Cross Canada Writers Quarterly 10.2 (1988): 24- 25. Crozier, Lorna. Rev. of Selected Poems Of Elizabeth Brewster, by Elizabeth Brewster. NeWest Review 13.8 (1988): 16,18. Denham, Paul. “Speeding Towards Strange Destinations: A Conversation with Elizabeth Brewster.” Essays on Canadian Writing 18/19 (1980): 149-160. Denoon, Anne. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Books in Canada 16.6 (1987): 21,24. Dixon, Michael F. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. University of Toronto Quarterly 58.1 (1988): 17-19. Drodge, Susan. Rev. of Garden of Sculpture, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Literature 165 (2000): 122- 125. Drummond, Robbie N. Rev. of Spring Again Poems, by Elizabeth Brewster. NeWest Review 16.4 (1991): 38-40. Emsley, Sarah L. Rev. of Garden of Sculpture, by Elizabeth Brewster. Dalhousie Review 78.2 (1998): 322- 324. “Five New Brunswick poets: Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, Robert Gibbs, Alden Nowlan [and] Kay Smith.” Fredericton, NB: The Fiddlehead, 1962. Gibbs, Robert. “Next Time from a Different Country.” Canadian Literature 62 (1974): 17-32. Hall, Phil. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Books in Canada 17.7 (1988): 10. Hamelin, Christine. Rev. of Spring Again Poems, by Elizabeth Brewster. Journal of Canadian Poetry 7 (1992): 37-41. Harding-Russell, Gillian. Rev. of Garden of Sculpture, by Elizabeth Brewster. Event 28.1 (1999): 112-117. Hatch, Ronald B. Rev. of Spring Again Poems, by Elizabeth Brewster. University of Toronto Quarterly 61.1 (1991): 65. Hood, Thomas. Rev. of Garden of Sculpture, by Elizabeth Brewster. Journal of Canadian Poetry 15 (1998): 28-32. Hurwitz, Anita. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Poetry Canada Review 9.4 (1989): 27. Junyk, Myra. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Queen’s Quarterly 96.1 (1989): 159-162. Keeney, Patricia. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Cross Canada Writers Quarterly 11.3 (1989): 23-24+. Keeney, Patricia. Rev. of Selected Poems Of Elizabeth Brewster, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Literature 118 (1988): 150-152. Kolbeins, Melanie. Rev. of Away From Home, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Literature 154 (1997): 169- 170. Lamont Stewart, Linda. Rev. of Footnotes to the Book of Job, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Literature 156 (1998): 119-120. Lincoln, Robert. Rev. of The Invention Of Truth, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Materials 20.4 (1992): 228. MacDonald, Tanis. “Regarding the Male Body: Rhapsodic Contradiction in Lorna Crozier’s ‘Penis Poems’.” English Studies in Canada 28.2 (2002): 247-267. MacLean, Kath. Rev. of Away From Home, by Elizabeth Brewster. Prairie Fire 17.4 (1997): 120-121. MacLean, Kath. Rev. of Footnotes to the Book of Job, by Elizabeth Brewster. Prairie Fire 18.3 (1997): 85- 89. Maingon, Loys. Rev. of Spring Again Poems, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Materials 18.6 (1990): 291- 292. Mazoff, CD. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Literature 124/125 (1990): 361-362. Moulton Barrett, Donalee. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Materials 16.6 (1988): 229-230. Nowlan, Michael O. Rev. of Spring Again Poems, by Elizabeth Brewster. Atlantic Advocate 81.4 (1990): 45. Nowlan, Michael O. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Atlantic Advocate 79.3 (1988): 52-53. Pacey, Desmond. “The Poetry of Elizabeth Brewster.” Ariel 4 (1973): 59-69. Pell, Barbara. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Literature 118 (1988): 169-171. Pearce, Jon. “A Particular Image of the Self: Elizabeth Brewster.” Twelve Voices: Interviews with Canadian Poets. Ottawa: Borealis, 1980. 7-23. Precosky, Don. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Fiddlehead 160 (1989): 116-118. Rayner, Anne. Rev. of Spring Again Poems, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Literature 135 (1992): 137- 139. Relke, Diana M. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. NeWest Review 14.4 (1989): 46-47. Rev. of Selected Poems Of Elizabeth Brewster, by Elizabeth Brewster. Cross Canada Writers Quarterly 8.2 (1986): 23-24. Rev. of Selected Poems Of Elizabeth Brewster, by Elizabeth Brewster. Fiddlehead 147 (1986): 104-107. Rev. of Selected Poems Of Elizabeth Brewster, by Elizabeth Brewster. University of Toronto Quarterly 56.1 (1986): 42-43. Rev. of Wheel of Change, by Elizabeth Brewster. Journal of Canadian Poetry 10 (1995): 28-32. Thompson, MA. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Quarry 36.3 (1987): 80-82. Tierney, Frank M. Rev. of Selected Poems Of Elizabeth Brewster, by Elizabeth Brewster. Journal of Canadian Poetry 2 (1987): 22-26. Tudor, Kay. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Fiddlehead 158 (1988): 103-106. Vaisius, Andrew. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Event 18.2 (1989): 113-116. Vaisius, Andrew. Rev. of Spring Again Poems, by Elizabeth Brewster. Prairie Fire 11.4 (1990/ 1991): 95-96. VonHausen, Ingrid. Rev. of Visitations, by Elizabeth Brewster. Canadian Materials 15.5 (1987): 191. Waddington, Marcus. Rev. of Entertaining Angels, by Elizabeth Brewster. Atlantic Provinces Book Review 15.3 (1988): 7.

AWARDS

1982: Honourary D. Lit, University of New Brunswick 1995: Lifetime Award for Excellence in the Arts, Saskatchewan Board of Arts

Argentine Poet Julio Cortázar 1914 - 1984

Julio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, (August 26, 1914 – February 12, 1984) was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Literary Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.

Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and María Herminia Descotte, moved from Argentina in 1913 to Brussels, Belgium, where Cortázar was born on August 26, 1914. At the time of his birth Belgium was occupied by the German troops of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Zürich where María Herminia's parents, Victoria Gabel and Louis Descotte (a French National) were waiting in neutral territory. The family group spent the next two years in Switzerland, first in Zurich, then in Geneva, before moving for short period to Barcelona. The Cortázars settled in Buenos Aires by the end of 1919.

Once in Argentina, his parents divorced a few years later. Cortázar spent most of his childhood in Banfield, a suburb south of Buenos Aires, with his mother and younger sister. The home in Banfield, with its backyard, was a source of inspiration for some of his stories. Despite this, he wrote a letter to Graciela M. de Solá on December 4, 1963 describing this period of his life as "full of servitude, excessive touchiness, terrible and frequent sadness." He was a sickly child and spent much of his childhood in bed reading. His mother selected what he read^{[citation needed]}, introducing her son most notably to the works of Jules Verne, whom Cortázar admired for the rest of his life. In the magazine Plural (issue 44, Mexico City, May 1975) he wrote: "I spent my childhood in a haze full of goblins and elves, with a sense of space and time that was different from everybody else's."

Education and teaching career

Cortázar became a primary school teacher when he was 18 (at that time, teacher´s degrees in Argentina were a diploma obtained after finishing high school and taking some more courses and exams). Although Cortázar never completed his degree in philosophy and languages at the University of Buenos Aires, he taught in several provincial high schools. In 1938 he published a volume of sonnets under the pseudonym Julio Denis. He later repudiated this volume. In a 1977 interview for Spanish TV he stated that publishing that book was his only transgression to the principle of not publishing any books until he was convinced that what was written in them was what he meant to say. In 1944 he became professor of French literature at the National University of Cuyo. In 1949 he published a play, Los Reyes (The Kings), based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Years in France

In 1951, Cortázar, who was opposed to the government of Juan Domingo Perón, emigrated to France, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. From 1952 onward, he worked for UNESCO as a translator. The projects he worked on included Spanish renderings of Robinson Crusoe, Marguerite Yourcenar's novel Mémoires d'Hadrien, and stories by Edgar Allan Poe. He also came under the influence of the works of Alfred Jarry and the Comte de Lautréamont, and wrote most of his major works in Paris. In later years he became actively engaged in opposing abuses of human rights in Latin America, and was a supporter of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.

Cortázar was married three times, to Aurora Bernárdez, to Ugnė Karvelis, and finally to Carol Dunlop. He died in Paris in 1984 and is interred in the Cimetière de Montparnasse, next to Carol Dunlop. The cause of his death was reported to be leukemia.

Cortazar's grave in Montparnasse, Paris

Work and legacy

Cortázar wrote numerous short stories, collected in such volumes as Bestiario (1951), Final del juego (1956), and Las armas secretas (1959). English translations by Paul Blackburn of stories selected from these volumes were published as Blow-up and Other Stories by Pantheon Books (1967). The title of this collection refers to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup (1967), which was inspired by Cortázar's story Las Babas del Diablo (literally, "The Droolings of the Devil", an Argentine expression for the long threads some spiders and other insects leave hanging between the trees). Puerto Rican novelist Giannina Braschi used Cortázar's story as a springboard for the chapter called "Blow-up" in her bilingual novel "Yo-Yo Boing!" (1998) that features scenes with Cortázar's characters La Maga and Rocamadour. Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño claimed Cortázar as a key influence on his novel The Savage Detectives: "To say that I'm permanently indebted to the work of Borges and Cortázar is obvious". Cortázar's story "La Autopista del Sur" ("The Southern Thruway") influenced another film of the 1960s, Jean-Luc Godard's Week End (1967).

Cortázar also published several novels, including Los premios (The Winners, 1960), Hopscotch (Rayuela, 1963), 62: A Model Kit (62 Modelo para Armar, 1968), and Libro de Manuel (A Manual for Manuel, 1973). These have been translated into English by Gregory Rabassa. The open-ended structure of Hopscotch, which invites the reader to choose between a linear and a non-linear mode of reading, has been praised by other Latin American writers, including José Lezama Lima, Giannina Braschi, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa. Cortázar's use of interior monologue and stream of consciousness owes much to James Joyce and other modernists, but his main influences were Surrealism, the French Nouveau roman and the improvisatory aesthetic of jazz. This last interest is reflected in the notable story, "El Perseguidor" ("The Pursuer"), which Cortázar based on the life of the bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker. Cortázar also mentions Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet several times in Hopscotch. His first wife, Aurora Bernárdez, translated Durrell into Spanish while Cortázar was writing the novel.

Cortázar also published poetry, drama, and various works of non-fiction. He also translated Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket into Spanish as Narracion de Arthur Gordon Pym. One of his last works was a collaboration with his third wife, Carol Dunlop, The Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, which relates, partly in mock-heroic style, the couple's extended expedition along the autoroute from Paris to Marseille in a Volkswagen camper nicknamed Fafner.

In Buenos Aires, a school, a public library, and a square in the neighbourhood of Palermo carry his name. The square is particularly well-known as a centre of a trendy and bohemian area with an important nightlife (sometimes referred to as "Plaza Serrano" or "Palermo Soho")

Duke University Press published a literary journal called "Hopscotch: A Cultural Review", named after Cortázar's novel.

Mentioned and spoken highly of in Rabih Alameddine's novel, 'Koolaids: The Art of War', which was published in 1998.

Notable works

• Axolotl
• Presencia (1938)
• Los reyes (1949)
• El examen (1950, first published in 1985)
• Bestiario (1951)
• Final del juego (1956)
• Las armas secretas (1959)
• Los premios (The Winners) (1960)
• Historias de cronopios y de famas (1962)
• Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963)
• Todos los fuegos el fuego (1966)
• Blow-up and Other Stories (1968)

Originally published in Spanish as "Ceremonias" (Barcelona, Seix Barral), title by which is widely known in Spanish literary circles, and in English (translated by Paul Blackburn) as End of the Game and Other Stories

A compilation of stories translated into English from the books Final del juego and Las armas secretas

• Around the Day in Eighty Worlds (La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos) (1967)
• 62: A Model Kit (62, modelo para armar) (1968)
• La noche boca arriba (1968)
• Last Round (Último Round) (1969)
• Prosa del Observatorio (1972)
• Libro de Manuel (1973)
• Octaedro (1974)
• Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales (1975)
• Alguien anda por ahí (1977)
• Territorios (1978)
• Un tal Lucas (1979)
• Queremos tanto a Glenda (1980)
• Deshoras (1982)
• Autonauts of the Cosmoroute (Los autonautas de la cosmopista) (1983)
• Nicaragua tan violentamente dulce (1983)
• Divertimento (1986)
• Diary of Andrés Fava (Diario de Andrés Fava) (1995)
• Adiós Robinson (1995)
• Save Twilight (1997)
• Cartas (three volumes) (2000)
• Papeles inesperados (2009)
• Cartas a los Jonquieres (2010)

Further reading

English

• Julio Cortázar (Modern Critical Views) / Bloom, Harold., 2005
• Schmidt-Cruz, Cynthia (2004). Mothers, lovers, and others: the short stories of Julio Cortázar. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-5955-3.
• Julio Cortázar (Bloom's Major Short Story Writers) / Bloom, Harold., 2004
• Weiss, Jason (2003). The lights of home: a century of Latin American writers in Paris. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-94013-9.
• Standish, Peter (2001). Understanding Julio Cortázar (Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature). University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-390-2.
• Questions of the liminal in the fiction of Julio Cortázar / Moran, Dominic., 2000
• Critical essays on Julio Cortázar / Alazraki, Jaime., 1999
• Alonso, Carlos J. (1998). Julio Cortázar: new readings. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45210-6.
• Stavans, Ilan (1996). Julio Cortázar: a study of the short fiction. New York: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-8293-1.
• The politics of style in the fiction of Balzac, Beckett, and Cortázar / Axelrod, Mark., 1992
• Writing at Risk: Interviews in Paris With Uncommon Writers / Weiss, Jason., 1991
• Rodríguez-Luis, Julio (1991). The contemporary praxis of the fantastic: Borges and Cortázar. New York: Garland. ISBN 978-0-8153-0101-1.
• Yovanovich, Gordana (1991). Julio Cortázar's character mosaic: reading the longer fiction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-5888-1.
• Carter, E. Eugene (1986). Julio Cortázar: life, work and criticism. Fredericton, Canada: York Press. ISBN 978-0-919966-52-9.
• Peavler, Terry J. (1990). Julio Cortázar. Boston: Twayne. ISBN 0-8057-8257-5.
• Boldy, Steven (1980). The novels of Julio Cortázar. Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-23097-1.

Spanish

• Discurso del Oso / children's book illustrated by Emilio Urberuaga, Libros del Zorro Rojo, 2008
• Montes-Bradley, Eduardo (2005). Cortázar sin barba. Madrid: Random House Mondadori. pp. 394 Hard Cover. ISBN 84-8306-603-3.
• Imagen de Julio Cortázar / Claudio Eduardo Martyniuk., 2004
• Julio Cortázar desde tres perspectivas / Luisa Valenzuela., 2002
• Otra flor amarilla : antología : homenaje a Julio Cortázar / Universidad de Guadalajara., 2002
• Yo y Cortázar / Christina Perri Rossi, 2001
• Julio Cortázar / Cristina Peri Rossi., 2001
• Julio Cortázar / Alberto Cousté., 2001
• La mirada recíproca : estudios sobre los últimos cuentos de Julio Cortázar / Peter Fröhlicher., 1995
• Hacia Cortázar : aproximaciones a su obra / Jaime Alazraki., 1994
• Julio Cortázar : mundos y modos / Saúl Yurkiévich., 1994
• Tiempo sagrado y tiempo profano en Borges y Cortázar / Zheyla Henriksen., 1992
• Cortázar : el romántico en su observatorio / Rosario Ferré., 1991
• Lo neofantástico en Julio Cortázar / Julia G Cruz., 1988
• Los Ochenta mundos de Cortázar : ensayos / Fernando Burgos., 1987
• En busca del unicornio : los cuentos de Julio Cortázar / Jaime Alazraki., 1983
• Teoría y práctica del cuento en los relatos de Cortázar / Carmen de Mora Valcárcel., 1982
• Julio Cortázar / Pedro Lastra., 1981
• Cortázar : metafísica y erotismo / Antonio Planells., 1979
• Es Julio Cortázar un surrealista? / Evelyn Picon Garfield., 1975
• Estudios sobre los cuentos de Julio Cortázar / David Lagmanovich., 1975
• Cortázar y Carpentier / Mercedes Rein., 1974
• Los mundos de Julio Cortázar / Malva E Filer., 1970

Filmography

• Cortázar, 1994. Documentary directed by Tristán Bauer.
• Cortázar, apuntes para un documental, Documentary. Eduardo Montes-Bradley (Director), Soledad Liendo (Producer). Theatrical release 2002. DVD Release 2007.
• Graffiti, 2005. Short movie based in Julio Cortázar´s short story "GRAFFITI". Directed by Pako González.

French Poet Jules Romains 1885 - 1972

Jules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule (August 26, 1885 – August 14, 1972), was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement. His works include the play Knock ou le Triomphe de la médecine, and a cycle of works called Les Hommes de bonne volonté (Men of Good Will).

Jules Romains was born in Saint-Julien-Chapteuil in the Haute-Loire but went to Paris to attend first the lycée Condorcet and then the prestigious École normale supérieure. He was close to the Abbaye de Créteil, a utopian group founded in 1906 by Charles Vildrac and René Arcos, which brought together, among others, the writer Georges Duhamel, the painter Albert Gleizes and the musician Albert Doyen. He received his agrégation in philosophy in 1909.

In 1927, he signed a petition (that appeared in the magazine Europe on April 15) against the law on the general organization of the nation in time of war, abrogating all intellectual independence and all freedom of expression. His name on the petition appeared with those of Lucien Descaves, Louis Guilloux, Henry Poulaille, Séverine... and those of the young Raymond Aron and Jean-Paul Sartre from the École normale supérieure.

During World War II he went into exile first to the United States where he spoke on the radio through the Voice of America and then, beginning in 1941, to Mexico where he participated with other French refugees in founding the Institut Français d'Amérique Latine (IFAL).

A writer on many varied topics, Jules Romain was elected to the Académie Française on 4 April 1946, occupying chair 12 (among the 40 chairs in that august academy). In 1964, Jules Romains was named citizen of honor of Saint-Avertin. Following his death in Paris in 1972, his place, chair 12, in the Académie Française was taken by Jean d'Ormesson.

Jules Romains is remembered today, among other things, for his concept of Unanimism and his cycle of novels in Les Hommes de bonne volonté (The Men of Good Will), a remarkable literary fresco depicting the odyssey over a quarter century of two friends, the writer Jallez and politician Jerphanion, who provide an example in literature of Unanimism.

Unanimism

Romains originally considered unanimism to mean an opposition to individualism or to the exaltation of individual particularities; universal sympathy with life, existence and humanity. In later years, Romains defined it as connected with the end of literature within "representation of the world without judgement", where his social ideals comprise the highest conception of solidarity as a defense of individual rights.

Romains in Popular Culture

The Red Envelope catalog company, in their 2007 Holiday catalog, surprisingly featured Les Createurs on the cover in a photograph, showing a female model playfully frustrated with her husband, a male model posing as a detached intellectual, half-heartedly helping her to decorate the Christmas tree, while his attention is focused on reading Les Createurs.

English Poet Guillame Apollinaire 1880 - 1918

Guillaume Apollinaire (born 26 August 1880 - died 1918) is considered one of the most important literary figures of the early twentieth century. His brief career influenced the development of such artistic movements as Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, and the legend of his personality—bohemian artist, raconteur, gourmand, soldier—became the model for avant-garde deportment. Although some critics hesitate to rank him with the greatest poets of the century, Apollinaire's legacy is claimed by such important literary innovators as Philippe Soupault, Louis Aragon, Jean Cocteau, and Gertrude Stein. Shortly before Apollinaire died, author Jacques Vache wrote to Andre Breton, the leader of the Surrealist movement: "[Apollinaire] marks an epoch. The beautiful things we can do now!"

According to most sources, Apollinaire was born in Rome, the illegitimate son of a Polish woman and an unidentified man—there is speculation that his father may have been an Italian military officer, a prelate, or even a cardinal in the Church; his friends, Pablo Picasso in particular, liked to joke that Apollinaire was the son of the Pope himself. He spent most of his youth traveling in Europe and as a result developed a cosmopolitan outlook and a fascination with a variety of cultures and fields of study. By the age of eighteen Apollinaire had finished school and settled in Paris. After securing work as a bank clerk, he became friends with and an avid supporter of avant-garde artists, including Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Rousseau, and Marcel Duchamp. Never affiliated solely with one group or school but, seemingly, a partisan of all modern artists, Apollinaire was intrigued by, and tended to associate with, those who appeared challenging or antagonistic toward bourgeois society; this inclination probably led to his six-day imprisonment in 1911 when he was wrongly suspected of being connected with the theft of the Mona Lisa. In 1914 he joined the French army, volunteering to defend his adopted country in World War I. Although initially a member of an artillery division that was relatively safe from active combat, he soon volunteered to fight at the front with the infantry. He suffered a head wound in 1916 and was sent back to Paris, where he saw the staging of his drama Les mamelles de Tiresias: Drame surrealiste (The Breasts of Tiresias). This play, the subtitle of which was later adopted by a group of artists and writers known as the Surrealists, established a model for advanced avant-garde theater and influenced such authors as Tristan Tzara, the titular leader of the Dada movement, and Andre Breton. In 1917 Apollinaire delivered the lecture "L'esprit nouveau et les poetes," a modern art manifesto in which he called for pure invention and a total surrender to inspiration. Apollinaire, weakened by the wound from which he never fully recovered, died of influenza two days before Armistice Day.

Apollinaire's earliest publications, the short story collections L'enchanteur pourrissant and L'heresiarque et cie (The Heresiarch and Co.), prefigure his subsequent work in their extravagant use of the imagination. The fantastic characters and situations depicted in these stories signal Apollinaire's repudiation of the realistic and naturalistic approaches to writing, which he believed, like the Symbolist writers before him, imposed arbitrary limitations on the writer's vision. Unlike the Symbolists, however, whose work intentionally ignored everyday reality, Apollinaire's writing demonstrates a serious attempt to confront and transform worldly experience in its diversity, from the crises and joys of personal emotional life to the advancements of technology and the tragedies of war. As Anna Balakian has observed, Apollinaire's ambition was "to change the world through language." Among his other works of fiction, the novel Le poete assassine ( The Poet Assassinated) introduces the theme of the poet as a creator of new worlds—a role that Apollinaire himself assumed in his major works, the poetry collections Alcools: Poemes 1898-1913 and Calligrammes: Poemes de la paix de la guerre (Calligrams).

Both Alcools and Calligrams are notable for their stylistic experimentation and the novelty of their themes and subjects. Many of these motifs—particularly those taken from contemporary life, including technology and the alienation of modern existence—had never been treated before in serious poetry. Moreover, in his treatment of such traditional poetic themes as war and romance, Apollinaire revealed his astonishing willingness to contemplate the severest emotions from new points of view. For example, his unique and liberating sense of humor serves to clarify—rather than diminish—the poignancy of his often tragic themes. He frequently achieved this somewhat paradoxical effect through stylistic innovations—avoiding punctuation in Alcools and shaping verse text into various objects in Calligrams —which a number of critics view as his most significant contribution to modern poetry. In addition to its technical innovations, Alcools contains what many critics regard as his most successful individual poems, "Zone" and "La chanson du mal-aime" ("Song of the Ill-Beloved"), which, with their hope and excitement in modernity, their erudite literary references, and their poignant expressions of disappointed love, embody the full range and complexity of his poetic vision. Apollinaire's works, from his visual poems to pornographic novels like Les onze mille verges ( The Debauched Hospodar), as well as his flamboyant personality, present numerous examples of those artistic traits which led the Surrealists and other literary experimentalists to claim him as one of their predecessors. Critics agree that Apollinaire's most striking qualities were his vitality and his constant readiness to take both personal and artistic risks.

Career

Writer. Worked as a bank employee in Paris; founded a review journal entitled Le festin d'esope; employed variously as a professional art journalist; art critic of Le petit bleu, beginning in 1912.

Bibliography

COLLECTIONS

• Oeuvres poetiques, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, 1956.
• 1965-66 Oeuvres completes, edited by Michel Decaudin, four volumes.
• Oeuvres en prose, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, edited by Michel Decaudin, 1977, Schoenhof's Foreign Books, 1988.
• (With Others) Allies des serbes, l Age d Homme (Lausanne, Switzerland), 1998.
• Lettres a Guillaume Apollinaire, 1904-1918, edited by Ricciotto Canudo, Klincksieck (Paris, France), 1999.

POETRY

• Le Bestiaire; ou, Cortege d'Orphee, Deplanche (Paris), 1911, published in English as Le Bestiaire, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), 1977.
• Alcools: Poemes 1898-1913, edited by Tristan Tzara, [France], 1913, published in English as Alcools, 1964, Humanities Press International, 1975.
• Case d'armons, [France], 1915.
• Vitam impendere amori, [France], 1917.
• Calligrammes: Poemes de la paix et de la guerre, 1918, published as Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War, University of California Press, 1991.
• Le cortege priapique, [France], 1925.
• Julie; ou, La Rose, [France], 1927.
• Le condor et le morpion, [France], 1931.
• Ombre de mon amour, P. Cailler Vesenaz, 1947, revised edition published as Poemes a Lou, 1955, French and European Publications, 1969.
• Le guetteur melancolique, 1952, Gallimard, 1970.
• Tendre comme le souvenir, Gallimard, 1952.
• Selected Poems, edited by Oliver Bernard, 1956, Anvil Press Poetry (London), 1986.

PLAYS

• Le mamelles de Tiresias (produced in 1917 ), Editions Sic, 1918.
• Couleur du temps (produced in 1918), 1949, translated as Color of Time, Zone (New York, NY), 1980.
• Casanova, Gallimard, 1952.
• (With Andre Salmon) La temperature (produced in 1975), published in Oeuvres en prose, 1977.
• Three Pre-Surrealist Plays, translation, introduction, and notes by Maya Slater, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

FICTION

• Les exploits d'un jeune Don Juan, 1907, French and European Publications, 1991.
• Les onze mille verges, 1907, published as The Debauched Hospodar, 1958, and Les onze mille verges, 1979, Dufour Editions, 1992.
• L'heresiarque et cie, P.V. Stock (Paris), 1910, issued as Contes choisis, 1922, published as The Heresiarch and Company, 1965, Exact Change, 1991.
• La fin de Babylone, Bibliotheque de Curieux, 1914.
• Les trois Don Juan, Bibliotheque de Curieux, 1915.
• Le poete assassine, 1916, published as The Poet Assassinated, Broom (New York, NY), 1923.
• L'enchanteur pourrissant, [France], 1919.
• La femme assise, 1920, revised edition, Editions de la Nouvelle revue francaise (Paris), 1928, French and European Publications, 1982.
• Les epingles: Contes, [France], 1928.
• Que faire?, Nouvelle Edition (Paris), 1950.
• The Wandering Jew and Other Stories, Hart-Davis (London), 1967.
• Meditations esthetiques: Les peintres cubistes, 1913 , published as The Cubist Painters: Aesthetic Meditations, 1913, Wittenborn (New York, NY), 1944.
• Le flaneur des deux rives suivi de Contemporains pittoresques, 1918, revised edition, Gallimard, 1975.
• Il y a, 1925, revised edition, Messein, 1949.
• Anecdotiques, 1926, revised edition, Gallimard, 1955.
• Contemporains pittoresques, [France], 1929.
• Oeuvres erotiques completes (verse and prose), three volumes, [France], 1934.
• L'esprit nouveau et les poetes, [France], 1946.
• Lettres a sa marraine, [France], 1948.
• Selected Writings, edited by Roger Shattuck, New Directions (New York, NY), 1950.
• Chroniques d'art, 1902-1918, edited by Leroy C. Breunig, 1961, published as Apollinaire On Art, Da Capo Press, 1972.
• (With Andre Level) Correspondance, edited by Brigitte Level, Lettres modernes (Paris), 1976.
• A propos d art negre, 1909-1918, new revised edition, Toguna (Toulouse, France), 1999.

Also editor of Chronique des grands siecles de la France, 1912. Some writings appear under the pseudonym Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzki.

Further Reading

BOOKS

• Adema, Marcel, Apollinaire, Heinemann, 1954.
• Bates, Scott, Guillaume Apollinaire, edited by David O'Connell, Twayne, 1989.
• Bohn, Willard, Apollinaire and the International Avant-Garde, State University of New York Press (Albany), 1997.
• Davies, Margaret, Apollinaire, Oliver &Boyd, 1964.
• Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century, updated edition, Ungar, 1967.
• Mackworth, Cecily, Guillaume Apollinaire and the Cubist Life, Horizon, 1964.
• Mathews, Timothy, Reading Apollinaire: Theories of Poetic Language, Manchester University Press, 1987.
• Oxford Companion to French Literature, corrected edition, Clarendon, 1966.
• Poetry Criticism, Volume 7, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1994.
• Steegmuller, Francis, Apollinaire: Poet among Painters, Farrar, Straus, 1963.
• Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature, H.W. Wilson, 1942.
• Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Volume 51, Gale, 1980.
• Twentieth Century Writing: A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literature, Transatlantic, 1969.