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. 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_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.
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.
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. 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. 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? 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. Aldous Huxley. Aldous Leonard Huxley /ˈhʌksli/ (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer, philosopher and a prominent member of the Huxley family. He was best known for his novels including Brave New World, set in a dystopian London, and for non-fiction books, such as The Doors of Perception, which recalls experiences when taking a psychedelic drug, and a wide-ranging output of essays.