|
A Poison Tree
"A Poison Tree" is a poem written by William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his ''Songs of Experience'' collection. It describes the narrator's repressed feelings of anger towards an individual, emotions which eventually lead to murder. The poem explores themes of indignation, revenge, and more generally the fallen state of mankind. Background The ''Songs of Experience'' was published in 1795 as a follow up to Blake's 1789 ''Songs of Innocence.''Gilchrist 1907 p. 118 The two books were published together under the merged title ''Songs of Innocence and Experience, showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul: the author and printer, W. Blake'' featuring 54 plates. The illustrations are arranged differently in some copies, while a number of poems were moved from ''Songs of Innocence'' to ''Songs of Experience.'' Blake continued to print the work throughout his life. Of the copies of the original collection, only 28 published during his life are known to exist, with an add ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his " prophetic works" were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself". Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he is held in high regard b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Songs Of Experience
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul''. Blake was also a painter before the creation of ''Songs of Innocence and Experience'' and had painted such subjects as Oberon, Titania, and Puck dancing with fairies. "Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and "Fall". Often, interpretations of this collection centre around a mythical dualism, where "Innocence" represents the "unfallen world" and "Experience" represents the "fallen world". Blake categorizes our modes of perception that tend to coordinate with a chronology that would become standard in Romanticism: childhood is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul''. Blake was also a painter before the creation of ''Songs of Innocence and Experience'' and had painted such subjects as Oberon, Titania, and Puck dancing with fairies. "Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and "Fall". Often, interpretations of this collection centre around a mythical dualism, where "Innocence" represents the "unfallen world" and "Experience" represents the "fallen world". Blake categorizes our modes of perception that tend to coordinate with a chronology that would become standard in Romanticism: childhood is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gabriel Stedman
John Gabriel Stedman (1744 – 7 March 1797) was a Dutch-born Scottish soldier who wrote ''The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam'' (1796). This narrative covers his years in Suriname as a soldier in the Dutch military deployed to assist local troops fighting against groups of escaped slaves.Price, xxi He first recorded his experiences in a personal diary that he later rewrote and expanded into the ''Narrative''. The ''Narrative'' was a bestseller of the time and, with its firsthand depictions of slavery and other aspects of colonialism, became an important tool in the fledgling abolitionist movement. When compared with Stedman's personal diary, his published ''Narrative'' is a sanitized and romanticized version of Stedman's time in Surinam. Early life Stedman was born in 1744 in Dendermonde, then in the Austrian Netherlands, to Robert Stedman, a Scotsman and officer in the Dutch Republic's Scots Brigade, and his Franco-Dutch wife, An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg (, ; born Emanuel Swedberg; 29 March 1772) was a Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian, scientist, philosopher and mystic. He became best known for his book on the afterlife, ''Heaven and Hell'' (1758). Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. In 1741, at 53, he entered into a spiritual phase in which he began to experience dreams and visions, notably on Easter Weekend, on 6 April 1744. His experiences culminated in a "spiritual awakening" in which he received a revelation that Jesus Christ had appointed him to write ''The Heavenly Doctrine'' to reform Christianity. According to ''The Heavenly Doctrine'', the Lord had opened Swedenborg's spiritual eyes so that from then on, he could freely visit heaven and hell to converse with angels, demons and other spirits, and that the Last Judgment had already occurred in 1757, the year before the 1758 publication of ''De Nova Hierosolyma et ejus doctrina coelesti'' (English: ''Concernin ... [...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 Augustus Tulk
Charles Augustus Tulk (1786–1849) was an English Swedenborgian and politician. Life The eldest son of John Augustus Tulk, he was born at Richmond, Surrey, on 2 June 1786. His father, a man of independent fortune, was an original member of the Theosophical Society formed (December 1783) by Robert Hindmarsh for the study of Emanuel Swedenborg's writings. Tulk was educated at Westminster School, of which he became captain, and was noted for his singing in the abbey choir. He was elected a king's scholar in 1801, and matriculated as a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1806. Reaching age 21 in 1807, Tulk had settled on him part of his father's estate in the area of Leicester Square in London. He sold the garden in the Square in 1808; forty years later this action led to the leading case ''Tulk v Moxhay'' on restrictive covenants.'Leicester Square Area: Leicester Estate', ''Survey of London: volumes 33 and 34: St Anne Soho'' (1966), pp. 416–440. URL: http://www.british-histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Music of Germany, Teutonic influences. Vaughan Williams i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Song Cycle
A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combination of solo songs mingled with choral pieces. The number of songs in a song cycle may be as brief as two songs or as long as 30 or more songs. The term "song cycle" did not enter lexicography until 1865, in Arrey von Dommer's edition of ''Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon'', but works definable in retrospect as song cycles existed long before then. One of the earliest examples may be the set of seven Cantiga de amigo, Cantigas de amigo by the 13th-century Galicians, Galician jongleur Martin Codax. Jeffrey Mark identified the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from Thomas Ravenscroft's ''The Briefe Discourse'' (1614) as the first of a number of early 17th Century examples in England. A song cycle is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ten Blake Songs
''Ten Blake Songs'' is a song cycle for tenor or soprano voice and oboe composed over the Christmas period of 1957 by Ralph Vaughan Williams (18721958), for the 1958 film ''The Vision of William Blake'' by Guy Brenton for Morse Films. The first nine songs are from ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' by the English poet and visionary William Blake (17571827); the tenth (Eternity) is from ''Several Questions Answered'' (No1 & No2) from the poet's notebook . The cycle is dedicated to the tenor Wilfred Brown and the oboist Janet Craxton. It was first performed in concert and broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 8 October 1958, shortly after the composer's death. The songs are: # "Infant Joy" (Innocence) # " A Poison Tree" (Experience) # "The Piper" (Innocence, titled "Introduction") # "London" (Experience) # " The Lamb" (Innocence) # "The Shepherd" (Innocence) # " Ah! Sun-flower" (Experience) # " Cruelty Has a Human Heart" (Experience, titled 'A Divine Image') # "The Divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
%2C_Portrait_miniature%2C1809.jpg "Click for more on -> Samuel Taylor Coleridge")
front.jpg "Click for more on -> Charles Augustus Tulk")
