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A. E. Dyson
Anthony Edward Dyson, aka Tony Dyson (28 November 1928 – 30 July 2002) was a British literary critic, university lecturer, educational activist and gay rights campaigner. Biography Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, his academic career began in 1955 when he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in English Literature at the University of North Wales, Bangor. From there, he went to the University of East Anglia where he was later appointed Reader. He took early retirement in the 1980s. Dyson single-handedly took the initiative in forming the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS) in May 1958. He had sent hundreds of letters to Members of Parliament and celebrities asking for their support, successfully bringing together an impressive collection of distinguished names, including Noel Annan, Lord Attlee, A. J. Ayer, Isaiah Berlin, Trevor Huddleston, Julian Huxley, C. Day-Lewis, J. B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell, Donald Soper, A. J. P. Taylor, Angus Wilson and Barbara Wootton. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gay Rights
Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , 33 countries recognized same-sex marriage. By contrast, not counting non-state actors and extrajudicial killings, only two countries are believed to impose the death penalty on consensual same-sex sexual acts: Iran and Afghanistan. The death penalty is officially law, but generally not practiced, in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (in the autonomous state of Jubaland) and the United Arab Emirates. As well as, LGBT people face extrajudicial killings in the Russian region of Chechnya. Sudan rescinded its unenforced death penalty for anal sex (hetero- or homosexual) in 2020. Fifteen countries have stoning on the books as a penalty for adultery, which would include gay sex, but this is enforced by the legal authorities in Iran and Niger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfenden Committee
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Sir John Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Michael Pitt-Rivers, John Gielgud, and Peter Wildeblood were convicted of homosexual offences. Background Under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, any homosexual activity between males was illegal. After the Second World War, there had been an increase in arrests and prosecutions, and by the end of 1954, in England and Wales, there were 1,069 men in prison for homosexual acts, with a mean age of 37 years. During a time of several significant trials, notably that of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, the Conservative government set up a departmental committee (in the Home Office and Scottish Home Department responsible for criminal law) under Sir John Wolfenden to consider both homos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Papers
The Black Papers were a series of articles on British education, published from 1969 to 1977 in the Critical Quarterly; their name intended as a contrast to government White Papers. According to the ''Critical Quarterly'' website the Black Papers were: ...an attack on the excesses of progressive education and the introduction by the Labour Party of a system of 11-18 comprehensives to replace the grammar school...the furore it created led to the publication of four more pamphlets. Contributors included Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest, Geoffrey Bantock, Jacques Barzun, Iris Murdoch and Rhodes Boyson. The Black Papers were not opposed in principle to progressive education, only to its excesses, which were rampant in British schools in the 1960s and 1970s. They criticised selection for grammar schools at the age of eleven and advocated it should be delayed until children were at least thirteen years of age. They criticised the student sit-ins which were damaging the reputation of Britis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The Colossus and Other Poems'' (1960) and ''Ariel'' (1965), as well as ''The Bell Jar'', a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death in 1963. ''The Collected Poems'' was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Plath graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Cambridge, England, where she was a student at Newnham College. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England. Their relationship was tumultuous and, in her letters, Plath alleges abuse at his hand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd. He wrote the poems ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' and ''Kubla Khan'', as well as the major prose work ''Biographia Literaria''. His critical work, especially on William Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking cultures. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including "suspension of disbelief". He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life, Coleridge had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder, which had not been defined during his lifetime.Jamis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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