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.

Biography of Wislawa Szymborska 1923

Short Story: Wislawa Szymborska was born in Kornik in Western Poland on 2 July 1923. Since 1931 she has been living in Krakow, where during 1945-1948 she studied Polish Literature and Sociology at the Jagiellonian University. Szymborska made her début in March 1945 with a poem "Szukam slowa" (I am Looking for a Word) in the daily "Dziennik Polski".

During 1953-1981 she worked as poetry editor and columnist in the Kraków literary weekly "Zycie Literackie" where the series of her essays "Lektury nadobowiazkowe" appeared (the series has been renewed lately in the addition to "Gazeta Wyborcza"-"Gazeta o Ksiazkach"). The collection "Lektury nadobowiazkowe" was published in the form of a book four times.

Szymborska has published 16 collections of poetry: Dlatego zyjemy (1952), Pytania zadawane sobie (1954), Wolanie do Yeti (1957), Sól (1962), Wiersze wybrane (1964), Poezje wybrane (1967), Sto pociech (1967), Poezje (1970), Wszelki wypadek (1972), Wybór wierszy (1973), Tarsjusz i inne wiersze (1976), Wielka liczba (1976), Poezje wybrane II (1983), Ludzie na moscie (1986). Koniec i poczatek (1993, 1996), Widok z ziarnkiem piasku. 102 wiersze (1996) . Wislawa Szymborska has also translated French poetry.

Her poems have been translated (and published in book form) in English, German, Swedish, Italian, Danish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, Bulgarian and other languages. They have also been published in many foreign anthologies of Polish poetry.

Wislawa Szymborska is the Goethe Prize winner (1991) and Herder Prize winner (1995). She has a degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters of Poznan University (1995). In 1996 she received the Polish PEN Club prize.

A selection of works by Wislawa Szymborska in English
People on a bridge. Poems. Introd. and transl. by Adam Czerniawski. London, Boston: Forest Books, 1990.
View with a grain of sand. Selected poems. Transl. by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1995.
Nothing twice. Selected poems. Selected and transl. by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. Kraków: Wydawn. Literackie, 1997.
Poems, new and collected, 1957-1997. Transl. by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1998.
Miracle fair. Selected poems. Transl. by Joanna Trzeciak. New York: Norton, 2001.
Nonrequired reading. Prose pieces. Transl. by Clare Cavanagh. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2002.

Nobel Lecture 1996 Wislawa Szymborska

Yannis Ritsos Biography (1909-90)

Short Brief: Yannis Ritsos was born in Monemvassia (Greece), on May 1st, 1909 as cadet of a noble family of landowners. His youth is marked by devastations in his family: economic ruin, precocious death of the mother and the eldest brother, internment of the father suffering of mental unrests.

He spends four years (1927-1931) in a sanatorium to take care of a tuberculosis.

These tragic events mark him and obsess his œuvre. Readings decide him to become poet and revolutionary.

Since 1931, he is close to the K.K.E., the Communist Party of Greece. He adheres to a working circle and publishes Tractor (1934), inspired of the futurism of Maïakovski, and Pyramids (1935), two works that achieve a balance still fragile between faith in the future, founded on the Communist ideal, and personal despair.


In 1936, the long poem Epitaph exploits the shape of the traditional popular poetry and express in a clear and simple language a moving message of fraternity. The music of Theodorakis on Epitaphios will be 1960 the detonator of the cultural revolution in Greece.

The dictatorial regime of Metaxas, from August 1936, constrained Ritsos to prudence, especially because Epitaphios has been burnt publicly. The poet is going to explore some conquests of surrealism: access to the domain of the dream, surprising associations, explosion of images and symbols, lyricism which shows the anguish of the poet, soft and bitter souvenirs: The Song of my Sister (1937), Symphony of the Spring (1938). excerpts of this œuvre constitute the basis of the Seventh Symphony of Theodorakis (1983-1984), named Symphony of the Spring precisely.

In Old Mazurka to the rhythm of rain (1942), Ritsos articulates for the first time his attachment to the Greek space, to the "Greecity" as holder of the historic memory that will fill all his future œuvre: Romiossini (Greecity, published only in 1954, set into music by Theodorakis in 1966), is a shattering hymn to tht humiliated land of the Greek, and The Lady of the Vineyards (1945-1947), of which an excerpt is integrated in the Seventh Symphony of Theodorakis.

During Greek civil war, Ritsos commits in the struggle against the fascists, and is sentenced to spend four years in detention in various camps of so-called "rehabilitation": Limnos, Ayios Efstratios, Macronissos.

In spite of this, he achieves an important production collected in Vigil (1941-1953), and in a long poetic chronicle of this terrifying decade: Districts of the world (1949-1951), the basis of another later composition of Theodorakis.

Comes then the big œuvre of his maturity: The Moonlight-Sonata (1956) – national price of the poetry, – When comes the Stranger (1958), The Old Women and the Sea (1958), The dead House (1959-1962) which introduces the set of the long monologues inspired by mythology and the ancient tragedies: Orestes (1962-1966), Philoctetes (1963-1965).

Between 1967 and 1971, the military junta constrained him to a new deportation to Yaros and Leros, and an assignment to residence to Samos. This didn't stop him from enriching again his vast œuvre and to prolong the inspiration of the Greek antique: Persephone (1965-1970), Agamemnon (1966-1970), Ismene (1966-1971), Ajax (1967-1969) and Chrysothemis (1967-1970), both written on the islands of his deportation, Helena (1970-1972), The Return of Iphigenia (1971-1972), Phaedra (1974-1975).

Fourth Dimension regroups all texts that have the shape of the theatrical monologue and that are inspired by the ancient myth. The heroes of these works are often before a conflict or at the doorstep of the death, at the moment where they are about making the balance of their life. While addressing themselves to some mute character, they launch themselves in a speech full of digressions and anachronisms. In fact, all these poems are a meditation on the old age, the death, the time, the familiar dilapidation, history and existences taken between personal requirements and collective imperatives, solitude and the crisis of revolutionary movements.
Ritsos writes also several sets of short poems who reflect in a moving way his people's awake nightmare: Stone, repetition, bars (1968-1969), Gestures, papers; The Wall in the mirror (1967-71), Passageway and staircase (1970), 18 little Songs of the bitter Homeland (1968-1970), put in music by Theodorakis in 1973, and The Sounder (1973). From 1970, the poetry of Ritsos takes the shape of long syntheses where oniric ruptures, awake dream, and the surreal constantly intervene in the daily life with strange presences of people and a continuous displacement in the time and in the space. A world is created in To Become (1970-1977), The Buffer (1976) or Song of Victory (1977-1983) which celebrate the beauty of life, while Erotica (1980-1981) is a vivid hymn to love in all its dimensions. The Monochordeses (1980) show the extreme concentration which Ritsos expressivity has reached.

In the 80es, Ritsos also wrote novels. Nine books are united under the title of Iconostase of the Anonymous Saints (1983-1985). The prose puts to profit the poet's conquests: liberty of metapher, alternation of the real and the onirique, sudden ruptures, daring language, blossoming of senses opening on an erotic universe, where times and ages always coexist.

The poems of his last book: Late in the night 1987-1989) are filled with sadness and the conscience of losses, but the humbly poetic way by which Ritsos restores life and the world around him, preserves a gleam of hope in an ultimate start of creativeness.

However, the poet lives the reduction of his health and the downfall of his political ideals grievously. Internally broken, he dies in Athens, November 11, 1990.

Some of his best known works include:

Tractor (1934), and Pyramids (1935) These two works achieve a fragile balance between faith in the future, founded on the Communist ideal, and personal despair.

Epitaph (1936). This was a lengthy poem which uses the mechanics of traditional poetry but expresses in a clear and simple language a message of fraternity and brotherhood

Vigil (1941-1953), and Districts of the world (1949-1951). These were written from his experiences in prison camps which occured becuase of the Greek civil war and his stance against the Fascists

Later works marked Ritsos' devlopment and maturity as a Poet:

The Moonlight-Sonata (1956) – When comes the Stranger (1958), The Old Women and the Sea (1958),

The dead House (1959-1962) This is a long monologue partly inspired by the ancient Greek mythology and the ancient tragedies:

A characteristic of his latest poems such as: Late in the night (1987-1989) is that they are filled with sadness and the awareness of suffering. But in a humbly poetic way Ritsos preserves a gleam of hope in an ultimate start of creativeness.

Romain Rolland Biography (1866 - 1944)

A Short Brief: Romain Rolland the great French savant, novelist, dramatist, essayist, and mystic---Romain Rolland (1866 - 1944) was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.

He was born in Clamecy, Nièvre, France. His family was of mixed stock including both wealthy townspeople and poorer labourers.

Romain Rolland went to University in 1886 where he studied philosophy, however he didn't enjoy the rigid nature of the philospohy syllabus and so left before he had finished his course. Instead he received a degree in history. After university he spent a couple of years in Italy, greatly admiring Italian art and the great masterpieces.

On returning to France he took up a posts teaching at various university's including the Sorbonne. However his heart was never in teaching, he prefered to be a writer. Therefore he quit his teaching post to dedicate his time to writing.

Rolland was my nature introverted he didn't make close friendships but absorbed himself in his writing. During the German occupation of France from 1940 he led a life of isolation and was very much a loner.

Romain Rolland was a lifelong pacifist. He was a great admirer of Gandhi and in 1924 wrote a book on Gandhi. This book was important for both himself and for Gandhi's reputation in Europe. The 2 men were able to meet in 1931. Throughout his life Romain Rolland retained a keen interest in Indian spirituality. He also wrote a biography of the great Hindu Saint Sri Ramakrishna. Romain Rolland was also a keen admirer of Sri Aurobindo a leading Indian nationalist and later teacher of Yoga.

Romain Rolland died on Dec 30,1944 in Vezelay.

Quotes of Romain Rolland

"If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India....For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay."

- Romain Rolland From: Life of Ramakrishna


"The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe."

- Romain Rolland From: Life of Vivekananda


"The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain - but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest."

-Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland on Sri Aurobindo:

‘Here comes Aurobindo, the completest synthesis that has been realized to this day of the genius of Asia and the genius of Europe.’...
‘in his hand, in firm unrelaxed grip, the bow of creative energy.’

Romain Rolland on Sri Ramakrishna

"I am bringing to Europe, as yet unaware of it, the fruit of a new autumn, a new message of the Soul, the symphony of India, bearing the name of Ramakrishna. "

“And in the life of Ramakrishna, the Man-Gods, I am about to relate the life of this Jacob's ladder, whereon the twofold unbroken line of the Divine in man ascends and descends between heaven and earth.'
Ramakrishna is the younger brother of our Christ. It is always the same Man - the son of Man, the Eternal, Our Son, Our God reborn. With each return he reveals himself a little more fully, and more enriched by the Universe.

Rilke, Rainer Maria Biography 1800-1926

Short Story: Writer and poet, considered one of the greatest lyric poets of modern Germany. Rilke created the 'object poem' attempting to describe with utmost clarity physical objects, the "silence of their concentrated reality." He became famous with such works as DUINESER ELEGIEN and DIE SONETTE AN ORPHEUS. They both appeared in 1923. After these books, Rilke had published his major works, believing that he had done his best as a writer. "Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further." (from Letters) Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague as the son of Josef Rilke, a railway official and the former Sophie Entz.

A crucial fact in Rilke's life was that his mother called him Sophia. She forced him to wear girl's clothes until he was aged five - compensating for the earlier loss of a baby daughter. Rilke's parents separared when he was nine and his militarily inclined father sent him at ten to the military academies of St. P?n and Mahrisch-Weisskirchenn. He suffered at the military academy, and was sent to a business school in Linz. He also worked in his uncle's law firm. Rilke continued his studies at the universities of Prague, Munich, and Berlin.

As a poet Rilke made his debut at the age of nineteen with LEBEN UND LIEDER (1894), written in the conventional style of Heinrich Heine. He met in Munich the Russian intellectual Lou Andreas-Salome, an older woman, who influenced him deeply. He travelled with her and her husband in Russia in 1899, visiting among others Leo Tolstoy. Rilke was deeply impressed by what he learned of Russian mysticism. During this period he started to write The Book of Hours: The Book of Monastic Life, which appeared in 1905. He spent some time in Italy, Sweden and Denmark, and joined an artists' colony at Worpswede in 1903.

During his Paris years Rilke developed a new style of lyrical poetry. After NEUE GEDIGHTE in (1907-08, New Poems) he wrote a notebook named DIE AUFZECHNUNGEN DES MALTE LAURIDS BRIGGE (1910), his most important prose work. It took the form of a series of semiautobiographical spiritual confessions but written by a Danish expatriate in Paris. Rilke's "thing-poems" (Dinggedichte) were not about dead objects, but in his writing they came alive - in 'Archaic Torso of Apollo' (from New Poems, 1908) the ancient statue discovered at Miletus is "stuffed with brilliance from inside" and "gleams in all its power". Rilke kept silence as a poet for twelve years before writing Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, which are concerned with 'the identity of terror and bliss' and 'the oneness of life and death'. Duino Elegies was born in two bursts of inspiration separated by ten years. In 1910-1912 Rilke was for some time the guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe at Duino, her castle near Trieste. According to a story, Rilke heard in the wind the first lines of his elegies when he was walking on the rocks above the sea - "Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' / hierarchies?"

In 1913 Rilke returned to Paris but he was forced to return to Germany because of the First World War. Duino Castle was bombarded to ruins and Rilke's personal property was confiscated in France. He served in the Austrian army and found another patron, Werner Reinhart, who owned the Castle Muzot at Valais. After 1919 he lived in Switzerland, where he died on December 29, in 1926. He had suffered from leukemia, and died of an infection he contracted when he pricked himself on a rose thorn. Duineser Elegien (1923) - Rilke visited his friend Princess Marie von Thurnun Taxis in 1910 at Duino, her remote castle on the coast of the Adriatic, and returned again next year. There he started to compose the poems, but the work did proceed easily.

After serving in the army Rilke was afraid that he would never be able to finish it but finally in 1922 he completed Duineser Elegien (Duino Elegies) in a chateau in Muzot, Switzerland. He also wrote an addition, the Sonnets to Orpheus (1923), which was a memorial for the young daughter of a friend. In the philosophical poems Rilke meditated on time and eternity, life and death, art versus ordinary things. The tone was melancholic. Rilke believed in the coexistence of the material and spiritual realms, but human being were for him only spectators of life, grasping its beauties momentarily only to lose them again. The Angel of absolute reality from his early elegies is too perfect and far from the reality of earth, but with the power of creativity an artist can try to build a bridge between two worlds, although the task is almost too great for a man. The work influenced deeply such poets as W.H. Auden, who had Rilkean angels appear in the collection In Times of War (1939), Sidney Keyes, Stephen Spender, Robert Bly, W.S. Merwin and John Ashbery.

Czeslaw Milosz Biography (1911-2004)

Short Brief: Poland in 1951 he wrote extensively as an émigré in the west. His writings and poetry deal extensively with the rise and consequences of totalitarianism. For his poetry the Nobel Prize committee awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.

Czeslaw Milosz was brought up in Lithuania to a family with an ancient lineage, stretching back to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a medieval state that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It was noted for its religious and cultural tolerance and Czeslaw Milosz often wistfully referred to this idealised time, when art could flourish undisturbed by adverse political consequences.

As a young man he became interested in writing and became part of a modern movement seeking to revitalise Polish literature. However his literary career was interrupted by the Nazi occupation. As a committed Socialist Czeslaw took part in activities of the resistance, engaged in fighting the Nazi occupation of Poland. After the war he became an important representative of the Polish government.
However he became increasingly disenchanted with the totalitarian nature of the Stalinist State and in 1951 he made the bold decision to leave Poland and seek exile in the West. Some left wingers such as Pablo Neruda criticised his decision (2), and Milosz himself felt some kind of guilt for forsaking his countrymen. (He was very happy to be able to return to Poland after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989). However initially the Americans were suspicious of someone who had served for so long in a Communist government. Therefore for 9 years he lived in Paris. Initially he was quite poor but he was befriended by Albert Camus and he was soon able to work on his writings and poetry. In 1960 he was able to travel to America where he worked as a lecturer on Polish literature at Berkeley University in California

In 1973 he was able to have his writings translated into English for the first time. It was the American poet Laureate Robert Hass who translated his works, bring Czeslaw Milosz into the remit of English speaking intellectuals.

In his own words Czeslaw Milosz referred to himself as “an ecstatic pessimist”. This in part reflects the duality of his writings and outlook on life. By nature he was open minded, kind and generous but throughout his life was confronted with the evils of totalitarianism being forced to flee his country of birth. However it was his capacity to reveal the real nature of totalitarianism that led to some of his greatest works. His most well known novel is “The Captive Mind”,In this book Mr Milosz deals with totalitarian ideology and also its unexpected appeal to many, even intellectuals. It is characteristic of many of his writings - hard hiting and thought provoking.

But at the same time as his political writings, he was also capable of writings, which sensitively dealt with issues such as immortality and love. Using imagery of an idealised past he created scenes of beauty and tenderness. In writing his nobel citation the committee wrote of Czeslaw Milosz:

“His writing is many-voiced and dramatic, insistent and provocative. This is true not only of his poetry but also of his prose - the novels, the analyses and, in every sense of the word, the many-sided essays which perhaps have been overlooked in favour of his poetry.” (1)

Returning to Poland in 1989 Czeslaw Milosz was feted as one of Poland’s leading intellectual figures. His words were used to describe a monument at the Gdansk shipyard. Honouring Polish workers who had been shot by the Communist regime. The monument was described with these words by Milosz

“Do not feel safe. The poet remembers.
You can kill one, but another is born.
The words are written down, the deed, the date.”

Czeslow Milosz died at his home in Krakow on Saturday 14 August, 2004.

Dante Alighieri Biography 1200-1300

Short Story: Born into a Guelph family (see Guelphs and Ghibellines) of decayed nobility, Dante moved in patrician society. He was a member of the Florentine cavalry that routed the Ghibellines at Campaldino in 1289. The next year, after the death (1290) of Beatrice, the woman he loved, he plunged into intense study of classical philosophy and Provençal poetry. This woman, thought to have been Beatrice Portinari, was Dante’s acknowledged source of spiritual inspiration.

Dante married Gemma Donati, had three children, and was active (1295–1300) as councilman, elector, and prior of Florence. In the complex politics of Florence, he found himself increasingly opposed to the temporal power of Pope Boniface VIII, and he eventually allied himself with the White Guelphs. After the victory of the Black Guelphs he was dispossessed and banished (1302). Exile made Dante a citizen of all Italy; he served various princes, but supported Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII as the potential savior of a united Italy. He died at the court of Guido da Polenta in Ravenna, where he is buried.



Works

Dante’s reputation as the outstanding figure of Italian letters rests mainly on the Divine Comedy, a long vernacular poem in 100 cantos (more than 14,000 lines) composed during his exile. Dante entitled it Commedia; the adjective Divina was added in the 16th cent. It recounts the tale of the poet’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, and is divided accordingly into three parts. In Hell and Purgatory Dante is guided by Vergil, through Heaven, by Beatrice, for whom the poem is a memorial. The work is written in terza rima, a complex verse form in pentameter, with interlocking triads rhyming aba, bcb, cdc, etc.

A magnificent synthesis of the medieval outlook, the Divine Comedy pictures a changeless universe ordered by God; its allegorical theme is the gradual revelation of God to the pilgrim. It is also a religious dialogue on the gradations of earthly sin and piety as well as on such topics as predestination and classical philosophy. The symbolism is complex yet highly rational; the verse is musical; and the entire work is one of great imagination. Through his masterpiece Dante established Tuscan as the literary language of Italy, surpassed all previous Italian writers, and gave rise to a vast literature.

Dante’s works also include La vita nuova [the new life] (written c.1292), a collection of prose and lyrics celebrating Beatrice and illustrating his idealistic concept of love; the Convivio (c.1304), an encyclopedic allegory praising both love and science; De monarchia, a treatise on the need for kingly dominance in secular affairs; and De vulgare eloquentia, on rules for the Italian vernacular. In addition, he wrote numerous lyrics, eclogues, and epistles

Biography of Anna Akhamatova 1889 – 1966

Short Story: Anna Akhmatova was the pen name of Anna Gorenko. She was interested in poetry from an early age but her father did not approve and this is why she was asked to use a pen name. She married Nikolai Gumilev a poet and critic in 1910. In 1912 Gumilev travelled to Abyssinia leaving Anna behind. During this period she wrote he first popular book “Evening”. With this and her 2nd book “Rosary” (1914) Anna become a well respected author, especially within the literary scene of St Petersburg.

Anna's poetry became associated with the movement of Acmeism. This praised the virtues of lucid, carefully-crafted verse. It was quite different to the previous symbolist style which was much more vague in its construction.

She divorced her husband N. Gumilev in 1918 and married twice more. Gumilev was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1921 and despite being divorced, through this association Akhamatova suffered from some degree of political censure for most of her life. One of her most famous works is “Requiem” This was written as a tribute to the many victims of Stalin. It was not published fully in the Soviet Union until 1987.

Despite the heavy censure Anna faced from the authorities throughout her life she remained deeply popular with Russian people. Through her poetry Anna was a link to the pre Communist past and she was also a personal witness to the political and cultural upheavals of Russian history.

She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1965 and was awarded the Etna-Taormina prize in 1964.

Anna Akhamatova died in Lenningrad in 1966

"Anna Andreevna Akhmatova used poetry to give voice to the struggles and deepest yearnings of the Russian people, for whom she remains the greatest of literary heroines. She has lately come to symbolize for the world even beyond Russia the power of art to survive and transcend the terrors of our century."