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The Famous Tay Whale
"The Famous Tay Whale" is a poem by William Topaz McGonagall about the Tay Whale, also known as the Monster, a humpback whale hunted and killed in 1883 in the Firth of Tay near Dundee, Scotland, then the country's main whaling port. The doggerel verse is famous for lacking poetic quality. Context The Tay Whale came to public prominence when it was subject to a public dissection by the anatomist Sir John Struthers and taken on a tour of Scotland and England by a showman, John Woods. Its skeleton is now held by the McManus Galleries in Dundee city centre. The poem The 56 line poem is broken into 14 four-line stanzas with irregular rhyming schemes, however the majority of the stanzas follow the AABB or AAAA scheme. No consistent scheme or pattern is used throughout the poem. The poem narrates the story of the whale's arrival ("’Twas in the month of December, and in the year 1883, That a monster whale came to Dundee,"), hunt ("And they laughed and grinned just like wild ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Topaz McGonagall
William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish descent. He gained notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work. He wrote about 200 poems, including "The Tay Bridge Disaster" and "The Famous Tay Whale", which are widely regarded as some of the worst in English literature. Groups throughout Scotland engaged him to make recitations from his work, and contemporary descriptions of these performances indicate that many listeners were appreciating McGonagall's skill as a comic music hall character. Collections of his verse remain popular, with several volumes available today. McGonagall has been lampooned as the worst poet in British history. The chief criticisms are that he was deaf to poetic metaphor and unable to scan correctly. His only apparent understanding of poetry was his belief that it needed to rhyme. McGonagall's fame stems from the humorous effects these shor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hoi Polloi
Hoi polloi (; ) is an expression from Greek that means "the many" or, in the strictest sense, "the people". In English, it has been given a negative connotation to signify the masses. Synonyms for ''hoi polloi'' include "the plebs" (plebeians), "the rabble", "the masses", "the great unwashed", " riffraff", and "the proles" (proletarians). The phrase probably became known to English scholars through Pericles' Funeral Oration, as mentioned in Thucydides' ''History of the Peloponnesian War''. Pericles uses it in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy, contrasting it with '' hoi oligoi'', "the few" (Greek: ; see also ''oligarchy''). Its current English usage originated in the early 19th century, a time when it was generally accepted that one must be familiar with Greek and Latin in order to be considered well educated. The phrase was originally written in Greek letters. Knowledge of these languages served to set apart the speaker from ''hoi polloi'' in question, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1958 Compositions
Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third overland journey to the South Pole, the first to use powered vehicles. ** Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls to Earth from its orbit, and burns up. * January 13 – Battle of Edchera: The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol. * January 27 – A Soviet-American executive agreement on cultural, educational and scientific exchanges, also known as the "Lacy-Zarubin Agreement, Lacy–Zarubin Agreement", is signed in Washington, D.C. * January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit. February * February 1 – Egypt and Syria unite, to form the United Arab Republic. * February 6 – Seven Manchester United F.C., Manchester United footballers are among the 21 people killed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Dundee
Dundee ( gd, Dùn Dèagh) is the fourth-largest city in Scotland with a population of around 150,000 people. It is situated on the north bank of the Firth of Tay on the east coast of the Central Lowlands of Scotland. The Dundee area has been settled since the Mesolithic with evidence of Pictish habitation beginning in the Iron Age. During the Medieval Era the city became a prominent trading port and was the site of many battles. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, the local jute industry caused the city to grow rapidly. In this period, Dundee also gained prominence due to its marmalade industry and its journalism, giving Dundee its epithet as the city of "jute, jam and journalism". Toponymy The name "Dundee" is of uncertain etymology. It incorporates the place-name element ''dùn'', fort, present in both Gaelic and in Brythonic languages such as Pictish. The remainder of the name is less obvious. One possibility is that it comes from the Gaelic 'Dèagh', meaning 'fire'. Another ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compositions With A Narrator
Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include visuals and digital space *Composition (music), an original piece of music and its creation *Composition (visual arts), the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work * ''Composition'' (Peeters), a 1921 painting by Jozef Peeters *Composition studies, the professional field of writing instruction * ''Compositions'' (album), an album by Anita Baker *Digital compositing, the practice of digitally piecing together a video Computer science *Function composition (computer science), an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones *Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions History *Composition of 1867, Austro-Hungarian/ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1880s Poems
Year 188 (CLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known in the Roman Empire as the Year of the Consulship of Fuscianus and Silanus (or, less frequently, year 941 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 188 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Publius Helvius Pertinax becomes pro-consul of Africa from 188 to 189. Japan * Queen Himiko (or Shingi Waō) begins her reign in Japan (until 248). Births * April 4 – Caracalla (or Antoninus), Roman emperor (d. 217) * Lu Ji (or Gongji), Chinese official and politician (d. 219) * Sun Shao, Chinese general of the Eastern Wu state (d. 241) Deaths * March 17 – Julian, pope and patriarch of Alexandria * Fa Zhen (or Gaoqing), Chinese scholar (b. AD 100) * Lucius Antistius Burrus, Roman politician (executed) * Ma Xiang, Chines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Princeton Glee Club
The Princeton University Glee Club is the oldest and most prestigious choir at Princeton University, composed of approximately 100 mixed voices. They give multiple performances throughout the year featuring music from Renaissance to Modern, and also tour internationally biannually. They have performed recently with Bobby McFerrin, Roomful of Teeth, Calmus, and a collection of the world's premier oktavists. Currently the Glee Club is led by Gabriel Crouch. General information The Princeton University Glee Club is the oldest singing group in existence at Princeton. It was founded in 1874 by Andrew Fleming West '74, who later became the first Dean of the Graduate College. The Glee Club is currently celebrating its 146th season of concerts. In 1907 Charles E. Burnham was the first professional musician to lead the Glee Club. He was succeeded in 1918 by Alexander Russell, who served until 1934, when the Glee Club became a responsibility of the music faculty. James Giddings became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yale Glee Club
The Yale Glee Club is a mixed chorus of men and women, consisting of students of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1861, it is the third oldest collegiate chorus in the United States after the Harvard Glee Club, founded in 1858, and the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, founded in 1859. The Glee Club performs several concerts each year in New Haven and goes on tour each January. According to music critic Zachary Woolfe of the ''New York Times'', it is "one of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous." Its members are "world famous for their harmonic precision" per ''New York Times'' music critic Robert Sherman. Organization Leadership The Glee Club is conducted by a member of the university faculty, and the work of running the organization has traditionally been divided between the director, the office manager, and a team of undergraduate student officers. The Glee Club's director generally holds a faculty position in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (born 1963) is a Finnish composer of classical music, and a professional translator. Early life Mäntyjärvi was born in Turku. He studied musicology, English philology and linguistics at the University of Helsinki, graduating with an FK (master's) degree in 1991. In 1987, he was accredited as an Authorized Translator from Finnish to English and English to Finnish, and since then he has been employed as a professional translator. He has also studied theory of music and choir conducting at the Sibelius Academy. Compositions As a composer, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi describes himself as an eclectic traditionalist: eclectic in that he adopts influences from a number of styles and periods, fusing them into his own idiom; traditionalist in that his musical language is based on a traditional approach and uses the resources of modern music only sparingly. Because he is himself active in making music, his music is very practically oriented; he is a choral singer, and thus mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada. Originally controlled by the Church of England, the university assumed its present name in 1850 upon becoming a secular institution. As a collegiate university, it comprises eleven colleges each with substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs and significant differences in character and history. The university maintains three campuses, the oldest of which, St. George, is located in downtown Toronto. The other two satellite campuses are located in Scarborough and Mississauga. The University of Toronto offers over 700 undergraduate and 200 graduate programs. In all major rankings, the university consistently ranks in the top ten public universities in the world and as the top university ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, (8 February 1888 – 14 October 1976) was an English actress. She was best known for her work on the stage, but also appeared in films at the beginning and towards the end of her career. Between 1964 and 1968, she was nominated for three Academy Awards. Evans's stage career spanned sixty years, during which she played more than 100 roles, in classics by Shakespeare, Congreve, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Wilde, and plays by contemporary writers including Bernard Shaw, Enid Bagnold, Christopher Fry and Noël Coward. She created roles in two of Shaw's plays: Orinthia in ''The Apple Cart'' (1929), and Epifania in ''The Millionairess'' (1940) and was in the British premières of two others: ''Heartbreak House'' (1921) and ''Back to Methuselah'' (1923). Evans became widely known for portraying haughty aristocratic women, as in two of her most famous roles as Lady Bracknell in ''The Importance of Being Earnest'', and Miss Western in the 1963 film of '' Tom Jones. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerard Hoffnung
Gerard Hoffnung (22 March 192528 September 1959) was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works. Raised in Germany, Hoffnung was brought to London as a boy, to escape the Nazis. Over the next two decades in England, he became known as a cartoonist, tuba player, impresario, broadcaster and raconteur. After training at two art colleges, Hoffnung taught for a few years, and then turned to drawing, on the staff of English and American publications, and later as a freelance. He published a series of cartoons on musical themes, and illustrated the works of novelists and poets. In 1956 Hoffnung mounted the first of his "Hoffnung Festivals" in London, at which classical music was spoofed for comic effect, with contributions from many eminent musicians. As a broadcaster he appeared on BBC panel games, where he honed the material for one of his best-known performances, his speech at the Oxford Union in 1958. In 1996 Humphrey Lyttelton recorded a portrait of Hoffnung entitl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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