Week #16: April 22 – April 30
According to the Population Reference Bureau, since the beginning of mankind roughly 50,000 years ago, more than 108 billion people have ever been born. And most of those people lived unremarkable lives. A few however permanently changed our history with their influence on our philosophical, religious, scientific, humanitarian, business, or literary beliefs and practices. Reaching back thousands of years ago, Socrates, going against the moral, intellectual and political norm of the time, changed the way we think. Instead of looking for answers from others, he encouraged people to seek answers from within, to question one’s own morals and motives leading to a new philosophical outlook on learning. Then several hundreds of years later, Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha converted people during their lifetime from a polytheistic culture to a monotheistic culture, and they continue to influence billions of people with their core values in life including beliefs about our origin and our afterlife. From a 50,000 year perspective, the more modern developments from Galileo Galilei, who concluded that, contrary to Catholic belief, the earth rotated around the sun, and Charles Darwin, who hypothesized that our species originated within the animal kingdom, both drastically changed the way we see and interact in the world. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood up and demanded equal rights for all, changing the humanitarian outcome for all future generations. And the inventions over the past couple of centuries that have changed the way society does business is awe-inspiring: Thomas Edison harnessed nature’s electrical power and showed us how to control it in our homes; Henry Ford introduced the mass-production line of automobiles, making them affordable for the average person and changing the mobility of a culture forever; Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web which now offers unlimited knowledge at our fingertips. And speaking of knowledge, one person in the literary world has influenced more future writers than anyone else ever combined. Who is that literary icon, who also happens to have had a birthday this week? Here’s a riddle to help you figure it out. What do the lyrics of Taylor Swift and 2Pac have in common? What about those of Metallica and Elton John? The Beatles and Iron Maiden? Dire Straits and Sting? The answer? Shakespeare! Yes they are all musicians in a wide-range of genres but they all have at least one song with lyrics influenced from this one literary icon. That person is William Shakespeare. Taylor Swift’s song “Love Story” and the opening arpeggio on Dire Strait’s album Making Movies both reference Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet; and Shakespeare’s portrayal of greedy and power-hungry kings such as King Lear and Macbeth make their way into the Beatles’ album The Magical Mystery Tour, Metallica’s song “King Nothing” from their album Load, and Elton John’s song “The King Must Die.” Even the prophesizing witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth make their presence known in 2Pac’s debut album 2Pacalypse Now with their chant “something wicked this way come,” and heavy metal icon Iron Maiden includes the prophesizing words from Mark Antony’s speech in Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” in the title of their top hit “The Evil that Men Do.” So far Shakespeare’s sadder and darker themes have influenced all these lyrics, but that’s not always the case. Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets, many with lighter themes highlighting new love and nature. “Sonnet #130” includes the line ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” which award-winning singer Sting in part borrowed for the title of his album Nothing Like the Sun. And these only represent a few of the modern lyrics Shakespeare inspired; if we also took note of the quotes, poems, novels, plays, movies, and counties, cities, and streets that Shakespeare also inspired, then our list would quickly turn into a gigantic book. So how did one person influence thousands, perhaps even millions? It certainly wasn’t his childhood background. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England on April 23, 1564 – we think. You see, we know very little about this man who changed the literary world forever. We know the church baptized him on April 26, 1564, an event that traditionally took place three days after birth. We know he was one of eight children born to his father, a leather merchant, and his mother, a land heiress, and although they lived wealthy for a time, by William’s childhood, their wealth had declined rapidly. We assume he attended the local King’s New School, which would have taught him the classics. But so far nothing extraordinary. As an adult, we know that at the age of eighteen, he married a pregnant Anne Hathaway – eight years his senior. We also know that William and Anne had three children: Susanna and then twins Hamnet and Judith. Unfortunately, at the age of eleven, Hamnet died for reasons that leave us in the dark. We know that Shakespeare goes off the radar for almost a decade and then reappears as a respected partner in the prestigious London acting company called Lord Chamberlain’s Men. By the age of thirty-three, he had already written fifteen plays and could afford to buy New House, the second largest house in Stratford. Within two more years, he and his partners built their own theatre called The Globe. Unfortunately, during a “Henry VIII” production in 1616, a canon shot during the performance caught the theatre’s thatched roof on fire and the entire theatre burned to the ground. And remarkably, it took a whopping 383 years to reconstruct The Globe, just a few blocks away from the original theatre. Prior to this reconstruction, surprisingly nothing existed in London to honor Shakespeare or his plays. And speaking from experience, when I saw “Titus Andronicus,” there’s nothing quite like watching a Shakespeare play in the same recreated outdoor ambiance of The Globe theatre on the banks of the Thames River in London. And lastly, we know that at the age of fifty-two, he was interred at the Trinity Church on April 25, 1616, leading us to believe that he died on April 23 – his birthday, but leaving it a mystery as to how or why he died. And as fate would have it, both of Shakespeare’s daughters had children that did not survive into adulthood, thus forever ending William Shakespeare’s line of ancestry. In all, in addition to the sonnets mentioned above, William Shakespeare wrote a total of thirty-seven plays, ranging from histories, tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies. So why does his writing, especially his plays, still hold such a dominant place in the literary canon? Why does even modern society still compare all other plays to Shakespeare’s plays? The answer may be that the themes of his plays - appearance vs reality, order vs chaos, life vs death, fate vs free-will, youth vs wisdom, ambition vs fortune, love vs hate, forgiveness vs violence, and ambition, evil, guilt, and conscience – transcend any time period and every culture. Whether you’re an elderly Chinese gentleman laying on his deathbed full of regrets during the 1700s or a young Afghanistan woman unhappy in an arranged marriage during the 1900s, you can find at least one Shakespearean play that connects with you, that speaks to you, on a deeper level. So does his ability to transcend time and cultures justify his inclusion on the list of people who changed history? Well if that reason is not enough, then the fact that he alone introduced more than 1,700 original words, such as lonely and frugal, and phrases, such as “breaking the ice” and “heart of gold,” into the English language – words and phrases that generation upon generation continue to use both in their writing and in their everyday speech – should definitely catapult him to the top of that list. Because of his influence, he is (perhaps) unknowingly ingrained in our psyche. Everyone has either seen or read a Shakespeare play, visited a place named after one of his creations, read a book by an author that Shakespeare inspired, or spoken one of the words he introduced. Not many people – ever – have had that kind of an impact; so I definitely say he has earned his spot on that list, and his name should certainly be near the top! And so now that we come towards the end of April and celebrate the great Bard’s birthday, I would love to return to his birthplace to pay my respects while visiting one of the many homes and properties associated with him, or even stand in front of his tombstone, that curses any man that may attempt to move his bones, and offer a moment of silence in gratitude for the impact he has had on so many lives throughout the centuries. But until I visit Stratford-upon-Avon again, it is with anticipation that I await the warmer weather of the summer months when Kentucky’s Shakespeare in the Park returns for their 69th continuous year of offering free performances to entertain and inspire audiences, so that I can attend and bask in the productions of his theatrical masterpieces. Well done William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon, and Happy Birthday! In addition to the websites I mentioned in my article, I also reference information from researching these authors on the following sites: Pettinger, Tejvan. “100 people who changed the world.” Biography Online. Retrieved 4 May 2018 from https://www.biographyonline.net/people/people-who-changed-world.html “Pop goes Shakespeare: the Bard in Modern Music.” British Broadcasting Company. 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2018 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4nwSNRbP6DhyV79KgT94LTp/pop-goes-shakespeare-the-bard-in-modern-music “William Shakespeare Biography.” The Biography.com. 5 August 2017. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved 4 May 2018 from https://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323 “William Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Influence.” 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2018 from https://www.williamshakespeare.net/
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Week #15: April 16 – April 21
Like all mothers, I want my children to gain the knowledge required to help them grow into independent productive members of society, and I want them to experience long-lasting happiness. When I look into the future, I can envision each one living their version of the American Dream: married with children and pets in a house, and working in a career that allows them to live comfortably in middle-class. That’s it. Average and reasonable expectations, right? But if this is the average then logically speaking, some young adults will not experience this average version of the American Dream, while other young adults will seem to have pixie dust sprinkled over them and coast right by average to the exceptional. But do we as parents really have any control over their path? According to Life and Fitness journalist for England’s newspaper The Telegraph Linda Blair, we do. Through her research she concluded that parents must incorporate six specific characteristics into their parenting in order to increase the likelihood that children will experience high levels of success in adulthood. To begin with, parents must teach grit (1) and self-belief (2). A child must persevere through their challenges and truly believe that they can do what they’ve set their minds to do. Parents must encourage their children to think outside-the-box (3). A child must understand that just because it hasn’t been done before, doesn’t mean it can’t be done – especially when it comes to society’s traditional boundaries. Parents must allow their children to try, to fail, to succeed on their own so that the accomplishment belongs to the child (4), not the parent. And what might be the hardest of all, the parent must trust (5) that their child will discover their own talents. Just because we have a specific talent or enjoy a particular hobby, does not mean the child will follow suit. But above all, these characteristics must start early (6) in the child’s development – the earlier, the better. After reading about these characteristics and looking at my now grown children, I’m personally feeling pretty good about my parenting, really only wishing that I’d started earlier, had more time. But hindsight is twenty-twenty. So why do I mention all this? The two authors that celebrate a birthday this week both come from families with ‘super-siblings’ – meaning that every child in their families went on to achieve a high-level of success. So were they sprinkled with pixie dust or did their upbringing include these parenting characteristics? Let’s take a look. American playwright and novelist, Thornton Wilder’s birthday is April 17, 1897. He was one of five children in the Wilder household with successful parents. His father achieved success as a newspaper owner/editor, public speaker, and consul general in Hong Kong appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt. His mother achieved her own success as a poet and as the first woman elected to public office in Hamden, Connecticut. His older brother earned his acclaim as a prize-winning poet. He also had three younger sisters: another award-winning poet, a successful novelist, and a zoologist. With all this success surrounding the household it is no wonder Thornton Wilder achieved success too, but was it parenting or pixie dust? After researching his life, several of his accomplishments as an adult prove that his parents must have incorporated those six parenting traits. As educated parents, they instilled in him a love of the literary classics at an early age (6). His enrollment and success at both Oberlin College and Yale University prove they instilled in him a sense of his own empowerment (4) – after all, they didn’t do his homework for him. And when he decided to include a year studying archaeology in Rome as part of his post-graduate work, his parents obviously had to trust (5) his instincts that the experience would help him in life. And it did; believing in himself (2), he published his first novel The Cabala (1926), a fantasy story about the death of pagan gods set in Rome. Although the book received unenthusiastic reviews, Wilder showed perseverance or grit (1) by continuing write and following his dream. His second novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), a story about unconditional love, brought him instant popularity and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. Wilder also proved that he had learned to think outside-the-box (3) when he wrote the theatrical sensation Our Town, popular for its never-seen-before rudimentary setting and a narrator that tells the story of a young couple in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Considering Thornton Wilder displayed the results of the six successful parenting characteristics, they must have worked – with maybe a little pixie dust. Unfortunately, he never married or had children, and died at the age of seventy-eight of a heart attack living in his Connecticut home that he shared with his sister, so he never had the opportunity to pass on those same characteristics. He did however leave us with great stories – in both book and play formats – and he left us a place to pay our respects to him: the Mount Carmel Burying Ground in Hamden, Connecticut. But super siblings don’t just happen in the United States. Let’s jump across the Atlantic Ocean and take a look at one of the most famous super sibling families ever known, especially in the literary world: the Bronte Family. This one family produced not one, not two, but three authors of international literary classics all within less than a year from each other: coming in third, Anne Bronte published The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in June 1848, Emily Bronte came in second, publishing Wuthering Heights in December 1847, but Charlotte Bronte beat them all to the publication finish line with Jane Eyre in October 1847, and it is in honor of her April 21, 1816 birthday this week that we take a look at her life to see if her parents had a secret supply of pixie dust or if they too incorporated the six characteristics of effective parenting to produce these successful writers. Let’s begin with the last trait (beginning early) and work backwards to the first trait (grit). When looking at Charlotte’s childhood, three significant events occurred that changed the course of her life. The tragic death of her mother from cancer when Charlotte was only five years old left her and her five other siblings in the care of her religious father and aunt. Although both of these educated adults home-schooled the children, her father, himself a poet, enrolled his girls at the Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge only a few years later in order to heighten their education. Unfortunately, this enrollment proved disastrous when illness spread throughout the school, eventually taking the lives of Charlotte’s two older sisters. So although her education began early (6), public schooling left a black mark on Charlotte’s heart, which we see remnants of in her novel, Jane Eyre. After enduring such a tragedy at the school, her father immediately brought his remaining three girls home. It is during this time at home that her father first witnessed the path his children would eventually take – writing. After receiving little toy soldiers as a present from him, the children created elaborate plays around these soldiers and wrote manuscripts through their voices in tiny writing so that you could imagine the little hands of the soldiers writing it themselves. Instead of reprimanding this foolish and ungodly behavior, their father trusted (5) that their creative imaginations would not lead them to harm’s way. But he also needed his maturing children to eventually contribute to the household’s finances, and one of the only respectable ways to do this was to become a governess, so Charlotte went back to school. Although she initially struggled in her studies, with self-determination and many skipped extra-curricular activities, less than two years later she had earned top marks in her class and several academic awards. Obviously these academic accomplishments prove her father instilled the sense of empowerment (4) in her: he knew she was struggling, but allowed Charlotte to own both the struggle and the sweet success of conquering that struggle. But although Charlotte conquered the academic struggle, she continued to struggle with her role in society. She hated the teaching profession; she wanted meaningful lasting work, flexible hours, and privacy, but as a female, she felt limited in a man’s world. Her solution came in the guise of her sisters’ poetry: Emily had written several poems. The three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, decided to publish a book of Emily’s poems intermixed with a few of their own using male pseudonyms, Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. The girls had found a way around society’s constricting gender roles, and thus confirmed that their father had taught them not to accept limitations (3). Charlotte took such pleasure in the business aspect of finding a publisher that her self-confidence grew. She stopped writing the more feminine poems and began writing her first novel, The Professor. Even though publishers continued to reject her novel, drawing on her previous sense of empowerment, she continued to believe in herself (2), so when a publisher finally said no to her first novel, but offered her hope by asking to see another example of her writing, she went home and within two weeks penned Jane Eyre (1847). The publisher immediately accepted it, as did the rest of the world. We’ve accounted for five traits, which only leaves one remaining – grit. One might think that Charlotte had to learn grit when her two older sisters died, or when she struggled in school, or in finding a way in a man’s world, or in publishing her writing. She did, but not to the degree which she needed after suffering another tragic loss. Within eight short months, Charlotte buried ALL her remaining siblings. Her brother Branwell died in September 1848, her sister Emily in December, and her sister Anne in May of 1849 – all succumbing to tuberculosis. From a happy family with five siblings, she was now alone. I’m going to guess that if her father had any pixie dust, he would have used it to save his children, so it seems more likely that he just incorporated the six traits really well into his parenting. Unfortunately, none of his children survived long enough to test out those same traits with their own children, for even Charlotte passed away before having children. She died nine months after her wedding from complications during her troublesome pregnancy. So now we are left with only something to hold - a literary classic portraying themes of love, identity, independence, and forgiveness - and something to see - in Haworth, England, the Bronte home, which is now the Bronte Parsonage Museum and the final resting place of the Bronte family, with the exception of Anne who died too far away while visiting in Scarborough. Although advances in medical and hygiene have severely decreased the likelihood of dying from tuberculosis, other illnesses still exist that take lives way too young. Although my own children are grown, I offer this advice to them as they begin their own parenting journey: to protect your children and give them the best chance at a successful life, I would certainly incorporate these six characteristics into your parenting styles – after all it can only help them. And vaccinate your children – because we all know that pixie dust is only used in fairy tales. In addition to the websites I mentioned in my article, I also reference information from researching these authors on the following sites: Blair, Linda. “Six ways to raise 'super-siblings'.” The Telegraph: Life and Fitness. 12 September 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2018 from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/six-ways-to-raise-super-siblings/ “Charlotte Bronte.” Poetry Foundation. 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2018 from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charlotte-bronte Dominus, Susan. “Overlooked No More: Charlotte Brontë, Novelist Known for ‘Jane Eyre’.” 8 March 2018. The New York Times. Retrieved 23 April 2018 from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/obituaries/overlooked-charlotte-bronte.html Dugan, Evelyn Clare. “The novels of Thornton Wilder: themes through characterization.” 1970. Ball State University.Retrieved on 20 April 2018 from http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/175952 Poulos, Alex. “The Thornton Wilder Society.” Montclair State University. Retrieved on 20 April 2018 from http://www.twildersociety.org/biography/chronology/ Strub, Rosey. “Wilder: The official website of the Thornton Wilder family.” The Wilder Family LLC. Retrieved on 20 April 2018 from http://www.thorntonwilder.com/ “Thornton Wilder Biography.” The Biography.com website. 11 November 2015. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved 20 April 2018 from https://www.biography.com/people/thornton-wilder-9531264 Tompkins, Joyce.“Charlotte Bronte.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2018 from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlotte-Bronte. |
AuthorLet me introduce myself. I am Julie Blasofsel. While teaching high school English for the past dozen years, my appreciation for works of literature increased after visiting several locations associated with the authors and their texts. You can't help but feel the presence of Ralph Waldo Emerson as you stand on the shores of Walden pond, the despair of Henry Longfellow as you stand in his house, the loneliness of Edgar A. Poe as you descend into his walled basement, the candor of Samuel Clemons as you reach his men-only study. My goal is to gather information and relate my experiences about these places of literary significance in this literary hive. Please add your literary travel experiences and recommendations. Together we can bring these authors to life and light the flame of passion for reading in others. Enjoy! Archives
October 2018
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