GREAT POETS

            William Wordsworth 

William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, a small quiet market town in northwest England, on the edge of the Lake District. Thus from the very beginning he was associated with that region which he loved more than any other, and except for brief sojourns in Britain, Germany, and Italy, he never left his beloved Lake Country. He died in 1850 and was buried at Grasmere, Westmoreland, about twenty-five miles from his birthplace.

His personal history was just about as uneventful as his lack of movement would lead one to expect. The excitement in his life took place on the level of intellect; he found ideas more exciting than any other thing. Though he appreciated the intimacy of a small circle of friends, he consistently avoided any larger portion of society. Like the American Thoreau, his philosophy was one rooted in simplicity of living, and like Thoreau, he sought always to practice it. In fact, he preferred humble surroundings and a minimum of personal effects. From his childhood onward, he invariably strove for economy, frequently from necessity, but always because of principle.

He was born one of five children to a modest land lawyer. Wordsworth's only sister, Dorothy was one year his junior. She never married because she preferred to become the poet's lifelong companion and informal biographer. William reportedly demonstrated no childish precocity. He was self-willed and often displayed such a violent temper that his mother confided she was worried more about his future than the destinies of her other children. His mother died in 1779, evidently of a cold.

Soon afterward, the poet and his elder brother were sent to the small, free grammar school at Hawkshead, near Windermere. He was not an outstanding student, but among his more rustic classmates he seems to have shone somewhat. He lodged and boarded with a childless landlady, and she seems to have come in many ways to replace his lost mother in his affections. For years he regarded her cottage as home and considered it a welcome relief from the establishments of his stern relatives. The cottage was a mere stone's throw from the open fields.

In 1783, his father died, and the young Wordsworth became an orphan at thirteen. Before his death, the father named his own brother and his wife's elder brother as joint guardians of the children, and it was to the latter that the four orphaned boys were sent. Their uncle proved to be hostile and insensitive toward them, never ceased to remind them of their poverty, and seems even to have encouraged the servants to neglect and abuse his charges. William appears to have been particularly disliked by master and servant alike.

As Wordsworth grew older, he decided he might like to become a lawyer. Accordingly, in October 1787, he left his uncle's home in Penrith and went to attend St. John's College, Cambridge. His apparent early enthusiasm for Cambridge was not long in turning to apathy. He found teachers and students shallow and the course of study inconsequential; he openly proclaimed that he could not stand the regimentation. He did desire admission to the circles representing the gentry and intelligentsia at Cambridge, but they would have none of him because he was poor and quite common.

During his vacations, he spent his time visiting his former landlady at Hawkshead and, with his sister Dorothy, covering some of Derbyshire and Yorkshire on foot. At the end of his junior year, he abandoned his earlier idea of applying for a fellowship. He and a schoolmate left on a three-month walking tour through France and on into the Alps and got as far as Lakes Maggiore and Como. Here he gathered the impressions which were to crystallize in his first volume of poems.

He took his B.A. degree in 1791 and soon after made one of a series of visits to London. He next considered becoming a clergyman. However, after a year of postgraduate work, he decided to go to France, where he intended to learn more of the language and customs of France with the intention of becoming a tutor. He stayed only four days in Paris before he moved on to Orléans to live among the natives. He shared lodgings with several members of the cavalry and probably through them was introduced to Paul Vallon, a clerk, and then to the latter's sister, Marie Anne ("Annette"). She was nearly four years older than the poet; she was a Royalist, and he was a self-styled "democrat," she was a Catholic and he a non-practicing Protestant; but love seems to have leveled all things. When she returned to her family home at Blois, farther south along the Loire, Wordsworth went with her. In the spring, she announced that she was going to have a baby and that the poet was the father. He meantime had been planning to return to England that spring (1792) to engage in some kind of literary activity or finally to take orders. The natural thing would have been for the two young people to marry, and from all indications, they were perfectly willing. The poet acknowledged (by proxy) the baby — a girl, Caroline — as his own at her baptism. But there were serious parental objections to nuptials.

At Orléans and Blois, Wordsworth was plunged into the midst of the intrigue that surrounded the French Revolution (1789-99). He was at first completely indifferent to the Revolution and its ideals. Slowly, however, he began to fancy himself a patriot and spoke up for the revolutionary cause. While at Blois, he had the good fortune to meet Michel Beaupuy, a captain, whom he met possibly through the local revolutionary club which the young Englishman had just joined. No other man except Samuel Taylor Coleridge had as great an influence on Wordsworth.

When King Louis XVI was beheaded on January 21, 1793, Wordsworth was back in England. Though the poet was compelled to defend the French Reign of Terror outwardly, his inner convictions were slowly altering, and he underwent a serious spiritual malaise, during which he seemed to be finally and completely without desire or design. As one biographer says, "largely because of what he underwent between 1792 and 1795, he became one of the voices of his age."

His relatives would now have none of him; they considered him an anarchist, as well as a disbeliever and an idler. His first volumes of poems were unpopular with the critics, when they were noticed at all. There was one man, nevertheless, who was much struck by these early endeavors, and that was Coleridge.

In October 1793, Wordsworth managed once more to return to Paris, a feat that took much courage. He found Blois cut off from Paris and once again returned to England. For years after, he had nightmares about what he had seen of the Terror.

In September of 1795, William and Dorothy got one of their most ardent wishes fulfilled — that of living together — when they let a house at Racedown, in Dorset, in southwest England. Wordsworth and Cole-ridge met in Bristol late in 1795 and corresponded thereafter. They did not become close friends until 1797. Together they planned a revolutionary volume which they supposed would change the course of English literature. Lyrical Ballads appeared September 1, 1798. It was slow to win literary favor but gradually acquired its permanent significance as the turning point in English poetry.

In 1802, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, a friend from childhood. She bore him six children. In 1805, a favorite brother drowned at sea, and this event shocked the poet. In the spring, The Prelude, begun in 1799, was concluded. In 1812, two of his children died within months of each other. The first collected edition of his poems appeared in 1815; five more editions followed between then and 1850. A bequest enabled him to indulge his passion for travel, and he toured Europe. From about 1829, his sister, who had always been high-strung, began to be mentally ill; in 1835, she went completely mad.

The later years of his life were peaceful. He had been given a job in the civil service in 1813 and thereafter took the large house called Rydal Mount, near Grasmere, where he was to live the rest of his life. His youthful religious skepticism was resolved, and he embraced the established church. He veered toward conservatism from the very moment of Napoleon's rise to power, and later he vociferously opposed many of the beneficial liberal measures of the time. He received honorary degrees from Durham (1838) and Oxford (1839). In 1842, he resigned his civic post and was awarded a pension. The following year, on the death of Southey, he was appointed Poet Laureate.

Toward the end of his life, he knew much fame. He was welcomed everywhere as a celebrity. The critics were stilled by his laureateship, and his verse became quite popular with the burgeoning middle class. It was very fashionable among the early Victorians to gather for group readings of Wordsworth's poetry.

In 1850, the death of his beloved daughter Dora (Dorothy) brought a depression from which he could not recover. On April 23, he died at the age of eighty. Thus was silenced one of the noblest voices of Romantic times and of all times.

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GREAT WRITERS

VIRGINIA WOOLF

In 1878, Leslie Stephen and Julia Jackson Duckworth married, a second marriage for both. They gave birth to Adeline Virginia Stephen four years later, on the 25th of January at 22 Hyde Park Gate, London. Virginia was the third of their four children. Leslie Stephen began his career as a clergyman but soon became agnostic and took up journalism. He and Julia provided their children with a home of wealth and comfort.Though denied the formal education allowed to males, Virginia was able to take advantage of her father's abundant library and observe his writing talent, and she was surrounded by intellectual conversation. The same year Virginia was born, for instance, her father began editing the huge Dictionary of National Biography. Virginia's mother, more delicate than her husband, helped to bring out the more emotional sides of her children. Both parents were very strong personalities; Virginia would feel overshadowed by them for years.Virginia would suffer through three major mental breakdowns during her lifetime, and she would die during a fourth. In all likelihood, the compulsive drive to work that she acquired from her parents, combined with her naturally fragile state, primarily contributed to these breakdowns. Yet other factors were important as well. Her first breakdown occurred shortly following the death of her mother in 1895, which Virginia later described as "the greatest disaster that could have happened." Some have suggested that Virginia felt guilt over choosing her father as her favorite parent. In any case, her father's excessive mourning period probably affected her adversely.Two years later, Virginia's stepsister Stella Duckworth died. Stella had assumed charge of the household duties after their mother's death, causing a rift between her and Virginia. Virginia fell sick soon after Stella's death. The same year, Virginia began her first diary.Over the next seven years, Virginia's decision to write took hold and her admiration for women grew. She educated herself and greatly admired women such as Madge Vaughan, daughter of John Addington Symonds, who wrote novels and would later be illustrated as Sally Seton in Mrs. Dalloway.Her admiration for strong women was coupled with a growing dislike for male domination in society. Virginia's feelings were likely affected by her relationship to her stepbrother, George Duckworth, who was fourteen when Virginia was born. In the last year of her life, Virginia wrote to a friend regarding the shame she felt when, at the age of six, she was fondled by George. Similar incidents recurred throughout her childhood until Virginia was in her early twenties. In 1904 her father died, shortly after finishing theDictionary and receiving a knighthood. Though freed from his shadow, Virginia was overcome by the event and suffered her second mental breakdown, combined with scarlet fever and an attempted suicide.When she recovered, Virginia left Kensington with her three siblings and moved to Bloomsbury, where she began to consider herself a serious artist. She immersed herself in the intellectual company of her brother Thoby and his Cambridge friends. This group, including E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, later formed what was known as the Bloomsbury Group, under the Cambridge don G.E. Moore. They were dedicated to the liberal discussion of politics and art. In 1906, Thoby died of typhoid fever and Virginia's sister married one of Thoby's college friends, Clive Bell. Virginia was on her own.Over the next four years, Virginia would begin work on her first novel, The Voyage Out (1915). In 1909, she accepted a marriage proposal from Strachey, who later broke off the engagement. She received a legacy of 2,500 pounds the same year, which would allow her to live independently. In 1911, Leonard Woolf, another of the Bloomsbury Group, returned from Ceylon, and they were married in 1912. Woolf was the stable presence Virginia needed to control her moods and steady her talent. He gave their home a musical atmosphere. Virginia trusted his literary judgment. Their marriage was a partnership, though some suggest their sexual relationship was nonexistent.Virginia fell ill more frequently as she grew older, often taking respite in rest homes and in the care of her husband. In 1917, Leonard founded the Hogarth Press to publish their own books, hoping that Virginia could bestow the care on the press that she would have bestowed on children. (She had been advised by doctors not to become pregnant after her third serious breakdown in 1913. Virginia was fond of children, however, and spent much time with her brother's and sister's children.) Through the press, she had an early look at Joyce's Ulysses and aided authors such as Forster, Freud, Isherwood, Mansfield, Tolstoy, and Chekov. She sold her half interest in 1938.Before her death, Virginia published an extraordinary amount of groundbreaking material. She was a renowned member of the Bloomsbury Group and a leading writer of the modernist movement with her use of innovative literary techniques. In contrast to the majority of literature written before the early 1900s, which emphasized plot and detailed descriptions of characters and settings, Woolf's writing thoroughly explores the concepts of time, memory, and consciousness. The plot is generated by the characters' inner lives, not by the external world.In March 1941, Woolf left suicide notes for her husband and sister and drowned herself in a nearby river. She feared her madness was returning and that she would not be able to continue writing, and she wished to spare her loved ones.Over the course of her many illnesses, however, Woolf had remained productive. Her intense powers of concentration had allowed her to work ten to twelve hours writing. Her most notable publications include Night and Day, The Mark on the Wall, Jacob's Room, Monday or Tuesday, Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's Own, The Waves, The Years, and Between the Acts. In total, her work comprises five volumes of collected essays and reviews, two biographies (Flush and Roger Fry), two libertarian books, a volume of selections from her diary, nine novels, and a volume of short stories.

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GREAT LIVES : Khalil Gibran

               Khalil Gibran

Khalil Gibran has always been controversial as an artist and writer- Many feel that he was somewhat of a phony, and others consider him to be a sensitive artist almost akin to Blake- He was a Christian from a mountain village in north Lebanon, and the air of the middle-east pervades his work- He, his mother, and brother and sisters came to America in 1895, when he was 12 years old- They were probably trying to escape a world the father dominated as a crude, loud-mouthed, drunk- Gibran was noticed early in Boston, and taken up by the photographer and publisher F. Holland Day- The photographer introduced Gibran to the Romantic poets and writers like Edward Carpenter and Nietzsche- Gibran went back to Syria for more education in 1897 and stayed for 3 years- When he came back he started to write and draw- 

Gibran seems to have been very taken with himself, and exaggerated his past and created stories about his father and his past that were straight out lies- He wanted people to think well of him, and he was charming enough to arouse interest- There was a strange dichotomy in this man- The image that he presented to the world was far from real- It was a creation of his and he lived it- But Gibran was a deep enough man that this false front to the world slowly caught up with him- He struggled with the contradictions that he had built up over a lifetime- He would often indicate that he was not real, that he wanted to be truer to himself- 

So how could a man so divided in such a crucial way, write and paint and draw successfully? Even though there is much to criticize in his writing, the reader can feel that his observations on life are valid- His strong point was the parable- They are simple and often profound- His true self seems to emerge, although not always fully, in his writings and in many of his drawings- There is a comparison to be made to Blake- They both wrote mystical tracts and illustrated their own works with often ethereal type images- “The Prophet” is well known and contains some truly memorable lines- The real inner man comes through in much of this writing- Some people smirk, when hearing talk of “The Prophet,” but they should not look down on such a work- Like much of Whitman’s poetry, it speaks to humanity, and not just to the intellectuals and scholars- 

I bought an Everyman volume of Gibran’s works about ten years ago- It is poorly edited, with no introduction, footnotes, or anything you would expect to find in the collected works of a noted writer- This tells me that the publisher felt that, given the type of reader the volume would attract, it wasn’t necessary to present more than the works themselves-

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GREAT LIVES

BIRTHDAY OF THE FOUNDER OF HOMEOPATHY, DR SAMUEL HAHNEMANN 

NOBEL LAUREATES

Marh 27 is the birth anniversary of Wilhelm Röntgen 

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born on #OnThisDay March 27, 1845, at Lennep in the Lower Rhine Province of Germany, as the only child of a merchant in, and manufacturer of, cloth. His mother was Charlotte Constanze Frowein of Amsterdam, a member of an old Lennep family which had settled in Amsterdam.

When he was three years old, his family moved to Apeldoorn in The Netherlands, where he went to the Institute of Martinus Herman van Doorn, a boarding school. He did not show any special aptitude, but showed a love of nature and was fond of roaming in the open country and forests. He was especially apt at making mechanical contrivances, a characteristic which remained with him also in later life. In 1862 he entered a technical school at Utrecht, where he was however unfairly expelled, accused of having produced a caricature of one of the teachers, which was in fact done by someone else.

He then entered the University of Utrecht in 1865 to study physics. Not having attained the credentials required for a regular student, and hearing that he could enter the Polytechnic at Zurich by passing its examination, he passed this and began studies there as a student of mechanical engineering. He attended the lectures given by Clausius and also worked in the laboratory of Kundt. Both Kundt and Clausius exerted great influence on his development. In 1869 he graduated Ph.D. at the University of Zurich, was appointed assistant to Kundt and went with him to Würzburg in the same year, and three years later to Strasbourg.

In 1874 he qualified as Lecturer at Strasbourg University and in 1875 he was appointed Professor in the Academy of Agriculture at Hohenheim in Württemberg. In 1876 he returned to Strasbourg as Professor of Physics, but three years later he accepted the invitation to the Chair of Physics in the University of Giessen.

After having declined invitations to similar positions in the Universities of Jena (1886) and Utrecht (1888), he accepted it from the University of Würzburg (1888), where he succeeded Kohlrausch and found among his colleagues Helmholtz and Lorenz. In 1899 he declined an offer to the Chair of Physics in the University of Leipzig, but in 1900 he accepted it in the University of Munich, by special request of the Bavarian government, as successor of E. Lommel. Here he remained for the rest of his life, although he was offered, but declined, the Presidency of the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt at Berlin and the Chair of Physics of the Berlin Academy.

Röntgen’s first work was published in 1870, dealing with the specific heats of gases, followed a few years later by a paper on the thermal conductivity of crystals. Among other problems he studied were the electrical and other characteristics of quartz; the influence of pressure on the refractive indices of various fluids; the modification of the planes of polarised light by electromagnetic influences; the variations in the functions of the temperature and the compressibility of water and other fluids; the phenomena accompanying the spreading of oil drops on water.

Röntgen’s name, however, is chiefly associated with his discovery of the rays that he called X-rays. 

In 1895 he was studying the phenomena accompanying the passage of an electric current through a gas of extremely low pressure. Previous work in this field had already been carried out by J. Plucker (1801-1868), J. W. Hittorf (1824-1914), C. F. Varley (1828-1883), E. Goldstein (1850-1931), Sir William Crookes (1832-1919), H. Hertz (1857-1894) and Ph. von Lenard (1862-1947), and by the work of these scientists the properties of cathode rays – the name given by Goldstein to the electric current established in highly rarefied gases by the very high tension electricity generated by Ruhmkorff’s induction coil – had become well known. Röntgen’s work on cathode rays led him, however, to the discovery of a new and different kind of rays.

On the evening of November 8, 1895, he found that, if the discharge tube is enclosed in a sealed, thick black carton to exclude all light, and if he worked in a dark room, a paper plate covered on one side with barium platinocyanide placed in the path of the rays became fluorescent even when it was as far as two metres from the discharge tube. During subsequent experiments he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate. When he immobilised for some moments the hand of his wife in the path of the rays over a photographic plate, he observed after development of the plate an image of his wife’s hand which showed the shadows thrown by the bones of her hand and that of a ring she was wearing, surrounded by the penumbra of the flesh, which was more permeable to the rays and therefore threw a fainter shadow. This was the first “röntgenogram” ever taken. In further experiments, Röntgen showed that the new rays are produced by the impact of cathode rays on a material object. Because their nature was then unknown, he gave them the name X-rays. Later, Max von Laue and his pupils showed that they are of the same electromagnetic nature as light, but differ from it only in the higher frequency of their vibration.

Numerous honours were showered upon him. In several cities, streets were named after him, and a complete list of Prizes, Medals, honorary doctorates, honorary and corresponding memberships of learned societies in Germany as well as abroad, and other honours would fill a whole page of this book. In spite of all this, Röntgen retained the characteristic of a strikingly modest and reticent man. Throughout his life he retained his love of nature and outdoor occupations. Many vacations were spent at his summer home at Weilheim, at the foot of the Bavarian Alps, where he entertained his friends and went on many expeditions into the mountains. He was a great mountaineer and more than once got into dangerous situations. Amiable and courteous by nature, he was always understanding the views and difficulties of others. He was always shy of having an assistant, and preferred to work alone. Much of the apparatus he used was built by himself with great ingenuity and experimental skill.

Röntgen married Anna Bertha Ludwig of Zürich, whom he had met in the café run by her father. She was a niece of the poet Otto Ludwig. They married in 1872 in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. They had no children, but in 1887 adopted Josephine Bertha Ludwig, then aged 6, daughter of Mrs. Röntgen’s only brother. Four years after his wife, Röntgen died at Munich February 10, 1923, from carcinoma of the intestine.

Source: Nobel Prize

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