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John Ozell
John Ozell (died 15 October 1743) was an English translator and accountant who became an adversary to Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. He moved to London from the country at around the age of twenty and entered an accounting firm, where he was successful in managing the accounts of several large entities, including the City of London itself. He was a Whig and probably a dissenter who associated with the prominent figures of the whig establishment in the 18th century. He was particularly associated with Joseph Addison and the "little senate" that met at Button's Coffee House in Covent Garden. He was financially well off, due to his accounting work. He died on 15 October 1743, a lifelong bachelor. Works Ozell taught himself several contemporary languages and had a good grounding in Latin and Greek from school. He began to act as a translator in addition to his work in accounting. Ozell's translations were not very strict, but they were of a better quality than those of his con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean (Christianity), Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift". Swift is remembered for works such as ''A Tale of a Tub'' (1704), ''An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity'' (1712), ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1726), and ''A Modest Proposal'' (1729). He is regarded by the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Satire#Classifications, Horatian and Juvenalian styles. His deadpan, ironic writing style, partic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tory Party
The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed Whig efforts to exclude James, Duke of York from the succession on the grounds of his Catholicism. Despite their fervent opposition to state-sponsored Catholicism, Tories opposed exclusion in the belief inheritance based on birth was the foundation of a stable society. After the succession of George I in 1714, the Tories were excluded from government for nearly 50 years and ceased to exist as an organised political entity in the early 1760s, although it was used as a term of self-description by some political writers. A few decades later, a new Tory party would rise to establish a hold on government between 1783 and 1830, with William Pitt the Younger followed by Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool. The Whigs won control of Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blank Verse
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse". The first known use of blank verse in English was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the '' Æneid'' (composed c. 1540; published posthumously, 1554–1557). He may have been inspired by the Latin original since classical Latin verse did not use rhyme, or possibly he was inspired by Ancient Greek verse or the Italian verse form of '' versi sciolti'', both of which also did not use rhyme. The play ''Arden of Faversham'' (around 1590 by an unknown author) is a notable example of end-stopped blank verse. History of English blank verse The 1561 play '' Gorboduc'' by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville was the first English pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version, and was written in dactylic hexameter. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The ''Iliad'' is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature. The ''Iliad'', and the ''Odyssey'', were likely written down in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. Homer's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Dacier
Anne Le Fèvre Dacier (1647 – 17 August 1720), better known during her lifetime as Madame Dacier, was a French scholar, translator, commentator and editor of the classics, including the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''. She sought to champion ancient literature and used her great capabilities in Latin and Greek for this purpose as well as for her own financial support, producing a series of editions and translations from which she earned her living. She was the dedicatee of Gilles Ménage's ''Historia mulierum philosopharum,'' whose characterisation of her and of Anna Maria van Schurman was used to provide leading examples in treatises arguing for female education across the following centuries. Early life and education The exact date of her birth is not known and sources differ in their opinions: 1647 is proposed by Frade and Wyles and also Conley in the '' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''; the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' suggests 1654; and the ''Catholic Encyclopedia' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Johnson (writer)
Charles Johnson (1679 – 11 March 1748) was an English playwright, tavern keeper, and enemy of Alexander Pope's. He was a dedicated Whig who allied himself with the Duke of Marlborough, Colley Cibber, and those who rose in opposition to Queen Anne's Tory ministry of 1710–1714. Johnson claimed to be trained in the law, but there is no evidence of his membership in any of the inns of court. At the same time, it is possible that he was a lawyer, as his first two published works, in 1704 and 1705 (''Marlborough; on the Late Glorious Victory Near Hochstet in Germany'' and '' The Queen; a Pindaric Ode'') had him living in Gray's Inn, and he married a Mary Bradbury in Gray's Inn chapel in 1709, the year of his first play, '' Love and Liberty'' (unproduced). Some time around 1710, he became friends with the actor-manager of Drury Lane Theatre, Robert Wilks, and Wilks ensured that Johnson's plays received consideration. In 1711, ''The Wife's Relief'' was a great success. The play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir ''Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber'' (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own company at Drury Lane, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and Alexander Pope, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière ndhapless Shakespeare". He regarded himself as first and foremost an actor and had great popular success in comical fop parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed. Cibber's brash, extroverted personality did not sit well with his contemporaries, and he was frequently accused of tasteless theatrical productions, shady business methods, and a social and political opportunism that was thought to have gained him the laureateship over far better poets. He rose to ignominious fame when he became t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronage of Cardinal Richelieu, who was trying to promote classical tragedy along formal lines, but later quarrelled with him, especially over his best-known play, ''Le Cid'', about a medieval Spanish warrior, which was denounced by the newly formed ''Académie française'' for breaching the unities. He continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years. Biography Early years Corneille was born in Rouen, Normandy, France, to Marthe Le Pesant and Pierre Corneille, a distinguished lawyer. His younger brother, Thomas Corneille, also became a noted playwright. He was given a rigorous Jesuit education at the ''Collège de Bourbon'' (Lycée Pierre-Corneille since 1873), where acting on the stage was part of the training. At 18 he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Congreve (playwright)
William Congreve (24 January 1670 – 19 January 1729) was an English playwright and poet of the Restoration period. He is known for his clever, satirical dialogue and influence on the comedy of manners style of that period. He was also a minor political figure in the British Whig Party. Early life William Congreve was born in Bardsey Grange, on an estate near Ledston, West Riding of Yorkshire. Although Samuel Johnson disputed this, it has since been confirmed by a baptism entry for "William, sonne of Mr. William Congreve, of Bardsey grange, baptised 10 February 1669" .e. 1670 by the modern reckoning of the new year His parents were Colonel William Congreve (1637–1708) and Mary Browning (1636?–1715), who moved to London in 1672, then to the Irish port of Youghal. Congreve was educated at Kilkenny College, where he met Jonathan Swift, and at Trinity College Dublin. He moved to London to study law at the Middle Temple, but preferred literature, drama, and the fashionable l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. He collaborated on writing plays with Francis Beaumont, and also with Shakespeare on three plays. Though his reputation has declined since, Fletcher remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration. Biography Early life Fletcher was born in December 1579 (baptised 20 December) in Rye, Sussex, and died of the plague in August 1625 (buried 29 August in St. Saviour's, Southwark). His father Richard Fletcher was an ambitious and successful cleric who was in turn Dean of Peterborough, Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of London (shortly before his death), as well as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth. As Dean of Pete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus. The word Plautine refers to both Plautus's own works and works similar to or influenced by his. Biography Not much is known about Titus Maccius Plautus's early life. It is believed that he was born in Sarsina, a small town in Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, around 254 BC.''The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature'' (1996) Ed. M.C. Howatson and Ian Chilvers, Oxford University Press, Oxford Reference Online According to Morris Marples, Plautus worked as a stage-carpenter or scene-shifter in his early years. It is from this work, perhaps, that his love of the theater originated. His acting talent was eventually discovered; and he adopted the names "Maccius" (a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dunciad
''The Dunciad'' is a landmark, mock-heroic, narrative poem by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times from 1728 to 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the Kingdom of Great Britain. Versions The first version – the "three-book" ''Dunciad'' – was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the ''Dunciad Variorum'', was published anonymously in 1729. The ''New Dunciad'', in a new fourth book conceived as a sequel to the previous three, appeared in 1742, and ''The Dunciad in Four Books'', a revised version of the original three books and a slightly revised version of the fourth book with revised commentary was published in 1743 with a new character, Bays, replacing Theobald as the "hero". Origins Pope told Joseph Spence (in ''Spence's Anecdotes'') that he had been working on a general satire of Dulness, with characters of contemporary Grub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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