George Bernard Shaw. George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. He was also an essayist, novelist and short story writer. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems with a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable.
Issues which engaged Shaw's attention included education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege. He was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working class. In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. Life[edit] Early years and family[edit] Education[edit] When his mother left home and followed her voice teacher, George Vandeleur Lee, to London, Shaw was almost sixteen years old. Shaw v. Androcles and the Lion (play) Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture. Characters in the play exemplify several themes and takes on both modern and supposed early Christianity, including cultural clash between Jesus' teachings and traditional Roman values.
The Shaw Alphabet Edition of Androcles and the Lion, 1962. Paperback cover design by Germano Facetti The short play is often printed with a preface that includes a long examination of the Gospels by Shaw, in which Shaw analyzes the Bible and proclaims his findings. The play was written at a time when the Christian Church was an important influence on society and there was strong pressure on non-believers in public life. The play has themes of martyrdom and persecution which are portrayed through the vehicle of comedy.
A notable[why?] The_Pilgrims_Progress. The Pilgrim's Progress. The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature,[1][2][3][4] has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.[5][6] Bunyan began his work while in the Bedfordshire county gaol for violations of the Conventicle Act, which prohibited the holding of religious services outside the auspices of the established Church of England. Early Bunyan scholars like John Brown believed The Pilgrim's Progress was begun in Bunyan's second, shorter imprisonment for six months in 1675,[7] but more recent scholars like Roger Sharrock believe that it was begun during Bunyan's initial, more lengthy imprisonment from 1660–72 right after he had written his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.[8] Plot[edit] First Part[edit]
Immanuel Kant. Immanuel Kant (/kænt/;[1] German: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl kant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is widely considered to be a central figure of modern philosophy. He argued that fundamental concepts structure human experience, and that reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to have a major influence in contemporary thought, especially the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.[2] Kant's major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781),[3] aimed to explain the relationship between reason and human experience.
With this project, he hoped to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. Kant argued that our experiences are structured by necessary features of our minds. Kant aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. Biography[edit] Young Kant was a solid, albeit unspectacular, student. Young scholar[edit] Early work[edit] Girolamo Savonarola. Girolamo Savonarola (Italian: [savonaˈroːla]; 1452–1498) was an Italian Dominican friar and preacher active in Renaissance Florence, and known for his prophecies of civic glory and calls for Christian renewal.
He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church. This seemed confirmed when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and threatened Florence. While Savonarola intervened with the king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici and, at the friar’s urging, established a popular republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world center of Christianity and "richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever",[1] he instituted a puritanical campaign, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth. Early years[edit] Savonarola was born on September 21, 1452, in Ferrara. Friar[edit] Preacher[edit] Prophet[edit] Reformer[edit] Aftermath[edit]
Lord Byron. He travelled all over Europe especially in Italy where he lived for seven years and then joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero.[1] He died one year later at age 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi in Greece. Often described as the most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses, including huge debts, numerous love affairs with both sexes, rumours of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and self-imposed exile.[2] Early life[edit] Byron's paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral the Hon. John "Foulweather Jack" Byron, and Sophia Trevanion.[7] Vice Admiral John Byron had circumnavigated the globe, and was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as "the Wicked Lord". Catherine Gordon, Byron's mother Upon the death of Byron's mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon.
Education and early loves[edit] Ah! Career[edit] Later years[edit] Thomas Paine. Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defence of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. Early life[edit] He attended Thetford Grammar School (1744–49), at a time when there was no compulsory education.[9] At age thirteen, he was apprenticed to his corsetmaker father; in late adolescence, he enlisted and briefly served as a privateer,[10][11] before returning to Britain in 1759.
In July 1761, Paine returned to Thetford to work as a supernumerary officer. John of Leiden. Portrait of Jan van Leiden as King of Münster by Heinrich Aldegrever, in prison shortly before his execution, 1536. Cages of the leaders of the Münster Rebellion at the steeple of St. Lambert's Church. John of Leiden (Dutch: Jan van Leiden, Jan Beukelsz or Jan Beukelszoon; aka John Bockold or John Bockelson) (1509? – January 22, 1536), was an Anabaptist leader from the Dutch city of Leiden. He was the illegitimate son of a Dutch mayor, and a tailor's apprentice by trade. Life[edit] Raised in poverty, young John became a charismatic leader who was widely revered by his followers.
The army of Münster was defeated in 1535 by the prince bishop Franz von Waldeck, and John of Leiden was captured. Motto of Jan van Leiden: "Gods macht is myn cracht" (God's power is my strength) Historiography[edit] In proverb, on stage and in fiction[edit] The opera Le prophète (1849) by Giacomo Meyerbeer features John as its hero. See also[edit] Münster Rebellion References[edit] Henrik Ibsen. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety.
Ibsen's later work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. The poetic and cinematic early play Peer Gynt, however, has strong surreal elements.[5] Ibsen is often ranked as one of the truly great playwrights in the European tradition.[6] Richard Hornby describes him as "a profound poetic dramatist—the best since Shakespeare".[7] He is widely regarded as the most important playwright since Shakespeare.[6][8] He influenced other playwrights and novelists such as George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Miller, James Joyce, Eugene O'Neill and Miroslav Krleža.
Early life[edit] Ibsen's grandmother Hedevig Altenburg, née Paus (cf. the character Hedvig in The Wild Duck) John Wesley. John Wesley (/ˈwɛsli, ˈwɛzli/;[1] 28 June [O.S. 17 June] 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an Anglican cleric and Christian theologian who, with his brother Charles Wesley and fellow cleric George Whitefield, is credited with the foundation of the evangelical movement known as Methodism. His work and writings also played a leading role in the development of the Holiness movement and Pentecostalism.[2][3] A key step in the development of Wesley's ministry was, like Whitefield, to travel and preach outdoors. In contrast to Whitefield's Calvinism, however, Wesley embraced the Arminian doctrines that dominated the Church of England at the time. Moving across Great Britain, North America and Ireland, he helped to form and organise small Christian groups that developed intensive and personal accountability, discipleship and religious instruction.
Most importantly, he appointed itinerant, unordained evangelists to travel and preach as he did and to care for these groups of people. Early life[edit] Aldous Huxley. English writer and philosopher (1894–1963) Aldous Leonard Huxley ( AWL-dəs; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher.[1][2][3][4] His bibliography spans nearly 50 books,[5][6] including novels and non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays.
He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death.[7] By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times,[9] and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.[10] Early life[edit] Career[edit]