Quotomania: Recent Episodes
dublab & Onassis LA
"When I was very young my Mother used to say to me: "We have two ears and one mouth." Unwittingly perhaps she was quoting the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea. As a quotomaniac by profession, I believe with Michel de Montaigne that "I only quote others to better express myself." “Quotomania” is hosted by Paul Holdengräber. LISTEN IN: Daily quotations from your favorite quotomaniac delivered directly into your ear.
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Poet, essayist, novelist, and playwright, Tess Gallagher was born on July 21, 1943 in Port Angeles, Washington. She received a BA and MA from the University of Washington, where she studied creative writing with Theodore Roethke, and a MFA from the University of Iowa. Her first collection of poems, Instructions to the Double, won the 1976 Elliston Book Award for "best book of poetry published by a small press". In 1984, she published the collection Willingly, which consists of poems written to and about her third husband, author Raymond Carver, who died in 1988. Other collections include Dear Ghosts (Graywolf Press, 2006); My Black Horse: New and Selected Poems (1995); Owl-Spirit Dwelling (1994) and Moon Crossing Bridge (1992).
Her honors include a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, two National Endowment of the Arts Awards, and the Maxine Cushing Gray Foundation Award.She has taught at St. Lawrence University, Kirkland College, the University of Montana in Missoula, the University of Arizona in Tucson, Syracuse University, and Willamette University, Bucknell University, and Whitman College.
From https://poets.org/poet/tess-gallagher.
Raymond Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, in 1938. His first short stories appeared in Esquire during Gordon Lish's tenure as fiction editor in the 1970s. Carver's work began to reach a wider audience with the 1976 publication of Will You Please be Quiet, Please, but it was not until the 1981 publication of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love under Gordon Lish, then at Knopf, that he began to achieve real literary fame. This collection was edited by more than 40 per cent before publication, and Carver dedicated it to his fellow writer and future wife, Tess Gallagher, with the promise that he would one day republish his stories at full length. He went on to write two more collections of stories, Cathedral and Elephant, which moved away from the earlier minimalist style into a new expansiveness, as well as several collections of poetry. He died in 1988, aged fifty.
From https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/183905/raymond-carver?tab=penguin-biography.
For more information about Tess Gallagher and Raymond Carver:
A New Path to the Waterfall: https://groveatlantic.com/book/a-new-path-to-the-waterfall/
“Tess Gallagher”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tess-gallagher
“Raymond Carver”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/raymond-carver
“Regarding Tess”: https://www.seattlemet.com/arts-and-culture/2009/01/0508-regardingtess
“Raymond Carver, The Art of Fiction No. 76”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3059/the-art-of-fiction-no-76-raymond-carver
“Raymond Carver: the kindest cut”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/27/raymond-carver-editor-influence
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Naomi Shihab Nye is an award-winning writer and editor whose work has appeared widely. She edited the ALA Notable international poetry collection, This Same Sky, and The Tree Is Older Than You Are: Poems and Paintings from Mexico, as well as The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East. Her books of poems include Fuel, Red Suitcase, and Words Under the Words. A Guggenheim fellow, she is also the author of the young adult novel Habibi, which was named an ALA Notable Book, a Best Book for Young Adults, and winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award as well as the Book Publishers of Texas award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Naomi lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Michael, and their son, Madison.
From https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Naomi-Shihab-Nye/1339809.
For more information about Naomi Shihab Nye:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Naomi Shihab Nye on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
Edward Hirsch about Nye, at 18:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
Words Under the Words: https://www.amazon.com/Words-Under-Selected-Poems-Corner/dp/0933377290
“Adios”: https://wordsfortheyear.com/2018/02/07/adios-by-naomi-shihab-nye/
“Naomi Shihab Nye”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/naomi-shihab-nye
“Naomi Shihab Nye, On Being”: https://onbeing.org/programs/naomi-shihab-nye-before-you-know-kindness-as-the-deepest-thing-inside/
“Naomi Shihab Nye Believes in the Found Poem”: https://miscellanynews.org/2020/10/21/arts/naomi-shihab-nye-believes-in-the-found-poem/
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Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871 in the Paris suburb of Auteuil. His father, Dr. Adrien Proust, was one of France's most distinguished scientists. His mother, Jeanne Weil, was a well-educated woman who loved the great classic writers of the 17th century, especially Molière and Racine. Marcel's only sibling, Robert, was born in 1873. The hypersensitive Marcel suffered all his life from a number of ailments, especially asthma. Although he earned university degrees in philosophy and law, he always knew that he wanted to be a writer.
In 1910, he had his bedroom lined with cork to block out the deafening noise of daytime Paris because he slept during the day and wrote through the night, after returning home from some of Paris's most exclusive salons. He was known as the city's most famous recluse, he even called himself an owl because he wrote while listening to his “nocturnal Muse.” Swann’s Way, the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, was published in November 1913 and was headed for a fourth printing when World War I broke out.
Proust continued to write, incorporating the unprecedented conflict into his story of contemporary French society. In 1919, Within a Budding Grove was published and won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize. The final three years of his life saw the publication of The Guermantes Way and Sodom and Gomorrah. The Captive, The Fugitive, and Time Regained were published posthumously. The novel's main themes are time and memory and the power of art to withstand the destructive forces of time.
From https://www.proust-ink.com/biography.
For more information about Marcel Proust:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sven Birkerts about Proust, at 18:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-181-sven-bikerts
Merve Emre about Proust, at 16:46: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-170-merve-emre
Used as the epigraph by Edmund de Waal in The Hare with Amber Eyes: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250811271/theharewithambereyes
In Search of Lost Time: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/SLT/in-search-of-lost-time
"Edmund de Waal on Anxiety, Silence, and the Edge of Terror and Beauty": https://lithub.com/edmund-de-waal-on-anxiety-silence-and-the-edge-of-terror-and-beauty/
"Edmund de Waal and Paul Holdengräber": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXJSOL9mhRc
"Edmund de Waal Live from NYPL": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4p2JdousbQ
“Reading Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ During a Pandemic”: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/11/reading-proust-in-search-of-lost-time-during-pandemic/616850/
“What We Find When We Get Lost in Proust”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/what-we-find-when-we-get-lost-in-proust
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) was born on June 10, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. A largely self-taught artist, Sendak illustrated over one hundred-fifty books during his sixty-year career.
The books he wrote as well as illustrated include Kenny’s Window, Very Far Away, The Sign on Rosie’s Door, Nutshell Library (consisting of Chicken Soup with Rice, Alligators All Around, One Was Johnny, and Pierre), Higglety Pigglety Pop!, Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy, Bumble-Ardy, My Brother’s Book, and Presto and Zesto in Limboland (co-authored by Arthur Yorinks). He has collaborated with such celebrated authors as Meindert DeJong, Tony Kushner, Randall Jarrell, Ruth Krauss, Else Holmelund Minarik, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. And he has illustrated classics by Mother Goose, the Brothers Grimm, Herman Melville, and Leo Tolstoy.
Sendak began a second career as a costume and stage designer in the late 1970s, designing operas that included Krása’s Brundibar, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges, and Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, as well as Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker. He also designed the sets and costumes, as well as wrote the book and lyrics for the musical production of Really Rosie.
Maurice Sendak remains the most honored children’s book artist in history. He was the recipient of the 1964 Caldecott Medal, the 1970 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 1983 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and the 2003 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. In 1996 President Bill Clinton presented him with the National Medal of Arts in recognition of his contribution to the arts in America. In 1972 Sendak moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut with his partner of fifty years, the psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Glynn (1926-2007).
From https://www.sendakfoundation.org/biography.
For more information about Maurice Sendak:
“He saw it, he loved it, he ate it”: https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/he-saw-it-he-loved-it-he-ate-it
“‘Fresh Air’ Remembers Author Maurice Sendak”: https://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak
“Transcript: ‘Fresh Air’ Remembers Author Maurice Sendak”: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/152248901
“Sendak’s Fantastic Imagination”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/01/22/among-the-wild-things
“Maurice Sendak: ‘I refuse to lie to children’”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/02/maurice-sendak-interview
“An Illustrated Talk With Maurice Sendak”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH2OaaktJrw
“The Wildest Rumpus: Maurice Sendak and the Art of Death”: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/maurice-sendak-art-of-death/472350/
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C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born on April 29, 1863, in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s, and died on the same day in 1933. During his lifetime Cavafy was an obscure poet, living in relative seclusion and publishing little of his work. A short collection of his poetry was privately printed in the early 1900s and reprinted with new verse a few years later, but that was the extent of his published poetry. Instead, Cavafy chose to circulate his verse among friends.
Cavafy is the leading poet of the periphery, writing in Greek far from Greek lands. The body of his poetry includes the 154 poems of the “canon”; 37 “repudiated poems,” most of which are juvenilia written in romantic katharevousa; 75 “hidden” poems that were found finished in his papers; and 30 “unfinished” poems. His poems often feature historical figures or creations of the poet’s imagination, with frequent references to elements of Homeric, Hellenistic, and Byzantine years. Today, his poetry occupies a prominent place in both Greek and world literature.
You may read the complete C. P. Cavafy bio here https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/and discover the digital collection of the Cavafy Archive here https://cavafy.onassis.org/.
For more information about C. P. Cavafy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy, at 11:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
C. P. Cavafy: Complete Poems: https://www.danielmendelsohn.com/book/c-p-cavafy-complete-poems
“Cavafy Archive”: https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/
“Man With a Past: Cavafy Revisited”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/23/man-with-a-past
“The City”: https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/the-canon/the-city
“Handwritten notes on ‘The City’”: https://cavafy.onassis.org/object/ad3m-a5bh-hs47/
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On December 4, 1875, Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague. His parents placed him in military school with the desire that he become an officer—a position Rilke was not inclined to hold. With the help of his uncle, who realized that Rilke was a highly gifted child, Rilke left the military academy and entered a German preparatory school. By the time he enrolled in Charles University in Prague in 1895, he knew that he would pursue a literary career: he had already published his first volume of poetry, Leben und Lieder, the previous year. At the turn of 1895-1896, Rilke published his second collection, Larenopfer (Sacrifice to the Lares). A third collection, Traumgekrönt (Dream-Crowned) followed in 1896. That same year, Rilke decided to leave the university for Munich, Germany, and later made his first trip to Italy.
In 1897, Rilke went to Russia, a trip that would prove to be a milestone in Rilke's life, and which marked the true beginning of his early serious works. While there the young poet met Tolstoy, whose influence is seen in Das Buch vom lieben Gott und anderes (Stories of God), and Leonid Pasternak, the nine-year-old Boris's father. At Worpswede, where Rilke lived for a time, he met and married Clara Westhoff, who had been a pupil of Rodin. In 1902 he became the friend, and for a time the secretary, of Rodin, and it was during his twelve-year Paris residence that Rilke enjoyed his greatest poetic activity. His first great work, Das Stunden Buch (The Book of Hours), appeared in 1905, followed in 1907 by Neue Gedichte (New Poems) and Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge). Rilke would continue to travel throughout his lifetime; to Italy, Spain and Egypt among many other places, but Paris would serve as the geographic center of his life, where he first began to develop a new style of lyrical poetry, influenced by the visual arts.
When World War I broke out, Rilke was obliged to leave France and during the war he lived in Munich. In 1919, he went to Switzerland where he spent the last years of his life. It was here that he wrote his last two works, the Duino Elegies (1923) and the Sonnets to Orpheus (1923). He died of leukemia on December 29, 1926. At the time of his death his work was intensely admired by many leading European artists, but was almost unknown to the general reading public. His reputation has grown steadily since his death, and he has come to be universally regarded as a master of verse.
From https://poets.org/poet/rainer-maria-rilke.
For more information about Rainer Maria Rilke:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Joy Harjo about Rilke, at 0:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-153-joy-harjo
Rosanne Cash about Rilke, at 22:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
Meredith Monk about Rilke, at 09:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-meredith-monk-054
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393882087
“Rainer Maria Rilke”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rainer-maria-rilke
“Reintroducing Rilke”: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703298004574459033827598594
“Can Rilke Change Your Life?”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-rilke-change-your-life
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
James Baldwin — the grandson of a slave — was born in Harlem in 1924. The oldest of nine children, he grew up in poverty, developing a troubled relationship with his strict, religious stepfather. In 1948, at age 24, Baldwin left for Paris, where he hoped to find enough distance from the American society he grew up in to write about it.
Over the next ten years, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul, writing two books of essays, Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961), as well as two novels, Giovanni’s Room (1956) and Another Country (1962). In the early 1960s, overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility to the times, Baldwin returned to take part in the civil rights movement. Traveling throughout the South, he began work on an explosive work about black identity and the state of racial struggle, The Fire Next Time (1963). This, too, was a bestseller: so incendiary that it put Baldwin on the cover of TIME Magazine. For many, Baldwin’s clarion call for human equality – in the essays of Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time – became an early and essential voice in the civil rights movement.
By 1987, when he died of stomach cancer at age 63, James Baldwin had become one of the most important and vocal advocates for equality. From Go Tell It on the Mountain to The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985), James Baldwin created works of literary beauty and depth that will remain essential parts of the American canon.
From https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/james-baldwin-about-the-author/59/.
Born in New York in 1923, Richard Avedon dropped out of high school and joined the Merchant Marine’s photographic section. Upon his return in 1944, he found a job as a photographer in a department store. Within two years he had been “found” by an art director at Harper’s Bazaar and was producing work for them as well as Vogue, Look, and a number of other magazines. During the early years, Avedon made his living primarily through work in advertising. His real passion, however, was the portrait and its ability to express the essence of its subject.
As Avedon’s notoriety grew, so did the opportunities to meet and photograph celebrities from a broad range of disciplines. Avedon’s ability to present personal views of public figures, who were otherwise distant and inaccessible, was immediately recognized by the public and the celebrities themselves. Many sought out Avedon for their most public images. His artistic style brought a sense of sophistication and authority to the portraits. More than anything, it is Avedon’s ability to set his subjects at ease that helps him create true, intimate, and lasting photographs.
Beyond his work in the magazine industry, Avedon has collaborated on a number of books of portraits. In 1959 he worked with Truman Capote on a book that documented some of the most famous and important people of the century. Observations included images of Buster Keaton, Gloria Vanderbilt, Pablo Picasso, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mae West. Around this same time he began a series of images of patients in mental hospitals. Replacing the controlled environment of the studio with that of the hospital he was able to recreate the genius of his other portraits with non-celebrities. The brutal reality of the lives of the insane was a bold contrast to his other work. Years later he would again drift from his celebrity portraits with a series of studio images of drifters, carnival workers, and working class Americans.
Throughout the 1960s Avedon continued to work for Harper’s Bazaar and in 1974 he collaborated with James Baldwin on the book Nothing Personal. Having met in New York in 1943, Baldwin and Avedon were friends and collaborators for more than thirty years. For all of the 1970s and 1980s Avedon continued working for Vogue magazine, where he would take some of the most famous portraits of the decades. In 1992 he became the first staff photographer for The New Yorker, and two years later the Whitney Museum brought together fifty years of his work in the retrospective, “Richard Avedon: Evidence”. He was voted one of the ten greatest photographers in the world by Popular Photography magazine, and in 1989 received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London. Today, his pictures continue to bring us a closer, more intimate view of the great and the famous. Avedon died on October 1st, 2004.
From https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/richard-avedon-about-the-photographer/467/.
For more information about James Baldwin and Richard Avedon:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., about Baldwin, at 03:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-104-eddie-s-glaude-jr
Nathalie Etoke about Baldwin, at 01:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-176-nathalie-etoke
Nothing Personal: https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/photography/all/66923/facts.richard_avedon_james_baldwin_nothing_personal.htm
Nothing Personal: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675742/nothing-personal-by-james-baldwin/
“Richard Avedon and James Baldwin’s Joint Examination of American Identity”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/13/richard-avedon-and-james-baldwins-joint-examination-of-american-identity
“Everybody Knows His Name: James Baldwin and Richard Avedon’s ‘Nothing Personal’”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/everybody-knows-his-name-james-baldwin-and-richard-avedons-nothing-personal/
“Sunday Reading: Celebrating James Baldwin”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-celebrating-james-baldwin
“James Baldwin”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/james-baldwin
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Appointed United States Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in 2010, William Stanley Merwin had a career that spanned seven decades. A poet, translator, gardener and environmental activist, Merwin has become one of the most widely read and honored poets in America. He died at home at the age of 91, in the house he built, among the thousands of palms he planted, on Friday, March 15, 2019.
Born September 30, 1927, in New York City, William Stanley Merwin was the son of a Presbyterian minister, for whom he began writing hymns at the age of five. He was raised in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and attended Princeton University on a scholarship. As a young man, Merwin went to Europe and developed a love of languages that led to work as a literary translator. Over the years, his poetic voice moved from the more formal to a more distinctly American voice. As the Atlantic Monthly said, “The intentions of Merwin’s poetry are as broad as the biosphere yet as intimate as a whisper. He conveys in the sweet simplicity of grounded language a sense of the self where it belongs, floating between heaven, earth, and the underground.”
He has lived in Majorca, London, France, Mexico and several places in the United States, as well as Boston and New York. In 1976, Merwin moved to Hawaii to study with Robert Aitken, a Zen Buddhist teacher. He married Paula Dunaway, in 1983, and settled on Maui. For over 40 years, they lived in a home that William designed and helped build, surrounded by acres of land once devastated and depleted from years of erosion, logging and toxic agricultural practices. Together, the Merwins painstakingly restored the land into one of the most comprehensive palm gardens in the world. He continued to live, write and garden in Hawaii until he died at home on Friday, March 15th, 2019.
From https://merwinconservancy.org/about-w-s-merwin/.
For more information about W. S. Merwin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Wayne Koestenbaum on Merwin, at 09:42: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-166-wayne-koestenbaum
Joy Harjo on Merwin, at 02:52: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-153-joy-harjo
Edward Hirsch on Merwin, at 19:54: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
Naomi Shihab Nye on Merwin, at 24:16: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
“Thanks”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57937/thanks
Migration: New and Selected Poems: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/migration-new-and-selected-poems-by-w-s-merwin/
“W. S. Merwin”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-s-merwin
“W. S. Merwin Interview”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSb8P5Qg5x8
“The Ascetic Insight of W. S. Merwin”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-ascetic-insight-of-w-s-merwin
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Henry James, (born April 15, 1843, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Feb. 28, 1916, London, Eng.), was a U.S.-British novelist. Born to a distinguished family, the brother of William James, he was privately educated. He traveled frequently to Europe from childhood on; after 1876 he lived primarily in England. His fundamental theme was to be the innocence and exuberance of the New World in conflict with the corruption and wisdom of the Old. Daisy Miller (1879) won him international renown; it was followed by The Europeans (1879), Washington Square(1880), and The Portrait of a Lady (1881). In The Bostonians (1886) and The Princess Casamassima (1886), his subjects were social reformers and revolutionaries. In The Spoils of Poynton (1897), What Maisie Knew(1897), and The Turn of the Screw (1898), he made use of complex moral and psychological ambiguity. The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904) were his great final novels. His intense concern with the novel as an art form is reflected in the essay “The Art of Fiction” (1884), his prefaces to the volumes of his collected works, and his many literary essays. Perhaps his chief technical innovation was his strong focus on the individual consciousness of his central characters, which reflected his sense of the decline of public and collective values in his time.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Henry-James-American-writer.
For more information about Henry James:
The Aspern Papers: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-aspern-papers-henry-james/1116755591
“A Discussion of Henry James’s The Aspern Papers”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/entitled-opinions/another-look-dci-event-discussion-henry-james-aspern-papers/
“Henry James”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/henry-james
“Henry James and the American Idea”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2011/julyaugust/feature/henry-james-and-the-american-idea
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Born in California on September 21, 1945, Kay Ryan grew up in the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. She received both a bachelor's and master's degree from UCLA. Ryan has published several collections of poetry, including The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (Grove Press, 2010), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2011; The Niagara River (2005); Say Uncle(2000); Elephant Rocks (1996); Flamingo Watching (1994), which was a finalist for both the Lamont Poetry Selection and the Lenore Marshall Prize; Strangely Marked Metal (1985); and Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends(1983).
Ryan's awards include a National Humanities Medal, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Union League Poetry Prize, the Maurice English Poetry Award, and three Pushcart Prizes. Her work has been selected four times for The Best American Poetry and was included in The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997.
Ryan's poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, The Yale Review, Paris Review, The American Scholar, The Threepenny Review, Parnassus, among other journals and anthologies. She was named to the “It List” by Entertainment Weekly and one of her poems has been permanently installed at New York’s Central Park Zoo. Ryan was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006. In 2008, Ryan was appointed the Library of Congress's sixteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County in California.
From https://poets.org/poet/kay-ryan.
For more information about Kay Ryan:
Erratic Facts: https://groveatlantic.com/book/erratic-facts/
“New Rooms”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55648/new-rooms
“Kay Ryan”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kay-ryan
“Kay Ryan at 75: Surprised by Joy”: https://www.wsj.com/articles/kay-ryan-at-75-surprised-by-joy-11600466756
“Kay Ryan, The Art of Poetry No. 94”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5889/the-art-of-poetry-no-94-kay-ryan
“Kay Ryan Reads From Her New Book, Erratic Facts”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMYWy9WKD_k
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Wallace Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on October 2, 1879. He attended Harvard University as an undergraduate from 1897 to 1900. He planned to travel to Paris and work as a writer, but, after working briefly as a reporter for the New York Herald Times, he decided to study law. Stevens graduated with a degree from New York Law School in 1903 and was admitted to the bar the following year. He practiced law in New York City until 1916.
Though Stevens was focused on his legal career, he was also part of New York’s literary community. He had several friends among the writers and painters in Greenwich Village, including William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and E. E. Cummings. In 1914, under the pseudonym “Peter Parasol,” he sent a group of poems under the title “Phases” to Harriet Monroe as entries for a war poem competition hosted by Poetry magazine. Stevens did not win the prize, but Monroe published his work in November of that year.
Stevens moved to Connecticut in 1916, having found employment at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co., where he became vice president in 1934. He had also begun to establish an identity for himself outside the worlds of law and business. His first book of poems, Harmonium (Alfred A. Knopf), published in 1923, exhibited the influences of both the English Romantics and the French Symbolists, and demonstrated a wholly original style and sensibility: exotic, whimsical, and infused with the light and color of an Impressionist painting.
For the next several years, Stevens focused on his business career. He began to publish new poems in 1930, however. In the following year, Knopf released a second edition of Harmonium, which included fourteen new poems, but excluded three of the decidedly weaker ones. More than any other modern poet, Stevens was concerned with the transformative power of the imagination. Composing poems on his way to and from the office and in the evenings, Stevens spent his days behind a desk at his office, and led a quiet, relatively uneventful life.
Though now considered one of the major American poets of the twentieth century, Stevens did not receive widespread recognition until the publication of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (Knopf, 1954), just a year before his death. His other major works include The Necessary Angel (Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), a collection of essays on poetry; Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction (The Cummington Press, 1942); The Man With the Blue Guitar (Alfred A. Knopf, 1937); and Ideas of Order (The Alcestis Press, 1935). Stevens died in Hartford, Connecticut on August 2, 1955.
From https://poets.org/poet/wallace-stevens.
For more information about Wallace Stevens:
“The Plain Sense of Things”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49420/the-plain-sense-of-things
“Wallace Stevens”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wallace-stevens
“The Thrilling Mind of Wallace Stevens”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-thrilling-mind-of-wallace-stevens
The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/251420/the-collected-poems-of-wallace-stevens-by-wallace-stevens-edited-by-john-n-serio-and-chris-beyers-edited-by-john-n-serio-and-chris-beyers/
“The Listening Booth: Wallace Stevens”: https://library.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/static/poetry/listeningbooth/poets/stevens.html
“On Wallace Stevens”: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/06/25/on-wallace-stevens/
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Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990), born in Monemvasia, lost his mother and an older brother to tuberculosis at an early age, then contracted the disease himself and spent years in and out of sanatoriums. His first poems, published in the 1930s, were hailed with enthusiasm by Kostis Palamas. He fought in the Greek Resistance during the Axis occupation of Greece, sided with the Communists in the Greek Civil War, and subsequently spent years in prison and in detention camps. He was imprisoned again during the dictatorship of 1967-1974. One of the most prolific Greek poets, Ritsos wrote over a hundred volumes of poetry, was broadly translated, and was nominated seven times for the Nobel Prize. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1976 and the Order of the October Revolution in 1977.
From The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present.
For more information about Yannis Ritsos:
The Greek Poets: https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Poets-Homer-Present/dp/0393060837
Yannis Ritsos: Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691019086/yannis-ritsos
“Yannis Ritsos”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/yannis-ritsos
“Yannis Ritsos, a Greek Poet, 81; Wrote Verse Inspired by Politics”: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/14/obituaries/yannis-ritsos-a-greek-poet-81-wrote-verse-inspired-by-politics.html
“Interview with Edmund Keeley”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkW9OuyjarI
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James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes's birth year was revised from 1902 to 1901 after new research from 2018 uncovered that he had been born a year earlier. His parents divorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry. After graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University in New York City. During this time, he worked as an assistant cook, launderer, and busboy. He also travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926 with an introduction by Harlem Renaissance arts patron Carl Van Vechten. Criticism of the book from the time varied, with some praising the arrival of a significant new voice in poetry, while others dismissed Hughes's debut collection. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter(Knopf, 1930), won the Harmon gold medal for literature.
Hughes, who claimed Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period such as Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including their love of music, laughter, and language itself alongside their suffering.
In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1950); Simple Stakes a Claim (Rinehart, 1957); Simple Takes a Wife (Simon & Schuster, 1953); and Simple's Uncle Sam (Hill and Wang, 1965). He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography, The Big Sea (Knopf, 1940), and cowrote the play Mule Bone (HarperCollins, 1991) with Zora Neale Hurston.
Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York City. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”
From https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes.
For more information about Langston Hughes:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o about Hughes, at 16:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-137-ngg-wa-thiongo
“Song for Billie Holiday”: http://stephenfrug.blogspot.com/2013/08/poem-of-day-langston-hughes-song-for.html
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/84090/selected-poems-of-langston-hughes-by-langston-hughes/
“Religion ‘around’ Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday, and Ralph Ellison”: https://aas.princeton.edu/news/roundtable-conversation-religion-around-langston-hughes-billie-holiday-and-ralph-ellison
“Langston Hughes: The People’s Poet”: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/langston-hughes-peoples-poet
“Langston Hughes”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/langston-hughes
“Langston Hughes Papers”: https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/langston-hughes-papers
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Joan Fuster (1922-1992) was a highly influential poet, critic and thinker who wrote in both Catalan and Spanish. Born in Sueca, a village near Valencia, he grew up in a middle-class Catholic family and graduated with a law degree from the Universitat de Valencia in 1947. Renowned for his irony, and his concise, incisive style of writing, Fuster is best known as an essayist and left-wing thinker who championed Catalan language and culture in Francoist Spain. Among his most celebrated books are Nosaltres, els valencians (1962), Diccionari per a ociosos (1964), and Final Judgements (1960).
From https://www.fumdestampa.com/shop/p/final-judgements.
For more information about Joan Fuster:
Final Judgements: https://www.fumdestampa.com/shop/p/final-judgements
Final Judgements: https://www.umasspress.com/9781913744359/final-judgements/
“Final Judgements by Joan Fuster”: https://www.lunate.co.uk/reviews/final-judgments-by-joan-fuster
“A short biography - Joan Fuster”: https://espaijoanfuster.org/a-short-biography/?lang=en
“Joan Fuster Museum”: https://museujoanfuster.org/en/
“The Catalan Paradox, Part II: Conversation with Translator Mary Ann Newman”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-catalan-paradox-part-ii-conversation-with-translator-mary-ann-newman/
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William Kentridge uses drawings to create films. In his works, unlike in traditional animation that employs multiple drawings to denote change and movement, Kentridge erases and alters a single, stable drawing while recording the changes with stop-motion camera work. He modifies the drawing slightly, goes to the camera, and begins what he calls “the rather dumb physical activity of stalking the drawing, or walking backwards and forwards between the camera and drawing; raising, shifting, adapting the image.” The result is a hybrid of drawing and film that has been highly praised for both its innovative manipulation of media and its ability to look at troubling social issues in a way that is neither sentimental nor aggrandized.
South Africa, where Kentridge was born and continues to work, is the focal point of his studio practice. Kentridge addresses apartheid and other social wounds without tackling the issues head-on, making them susceptible either to redemption that comes too easily or to a rendering of their history that is too spectacular. He enters into historical discussions through the lives of three fictional characters: Soho Eckstein, Mrs. Eckstein, and Felix Teitelbaum. Their individual lives are set against the wide, political landscape of South Africa as well as the deeper forces of life like renewal and destruction. The various vectors of thoughts, feelings, and inner turmoil of the characters, represented sometimes by animals or lines or other markings, spill across Kentridge’s images and frames. The personal and public become critically mixed, neither free of guilt nor completely capable of redemption.
In Stereoscope, 1999 Soho Eckstein is portrayed as interconnected with both images of the social injustices and upheaval of South Africa and his own sort of primal, fractured existence. The stereoscope, a device used to unite split images into the illusion of a coherent visual field, represents exactly what Kentridge does not allow in the film. He instead uses his method of erasure to move between disparate images and situations, not a presentation of a unified field but a shifting scene of energetic connections and splits. The result is a work that can face the humanity of the individual without expunging guilt and address larger issues in society without trite, easy solutions.
From https://www.thebroad.org/art/william-kentridge.
For more information about William Kentridge:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
William Kentridge: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-064-william-kentridge
“William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows”: https://www.thebroad.org/art/special-exhibitions/william-kentridge-praise-shadows
William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows: https://www.amazon.com/William-Kentridge-Shadows-Ed-Schad/dp/1636810667
“Lexus L/Studio - Conversation Portrait, William Kentridge”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNx0lH090IM
“A Show About Colonial Power, Born From the Freedom to Make Mistakes”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/theater/houseboy-kentridge-lace-phala.html
“William Kentridge: ‘The history of the 20th century shows us the danger of all claims to certainty’”: https://www.ft.com/content/5589fd2b-6fb1-4d77-a90d-ac44a1d2fd52
“William Kentridge wows the world”: https://mg.co.za/friday/2022-11-11-william-kentridge-wows-the-world-and-his-centenarian-father/
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On March 24, 1919, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York. After spending his early childhood in France, he received his BA from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the Sorbonne. He is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including Poetry as Insurgent Art (New Directions, 2007); Americus, Book I (New Directions, 2004); A Far Rockaway of the Heart (New Directions, 1997); and A Coney Island of the Mind (New Directions, 1958). He has translated the works of a number of poets, including Nicanor Parra, Jacques Prevert, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. In addition to poetry, he is also the author of more than eight plays and three novels, including Little Boy: A Novel (Doubleday, 2019), Love in the Days of Rage (Overlook, 1988), and Her (New Directions, 1966).
In 1953, Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin opened the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, California, helping to support their magazine, City Lights. Two years later, they launched City Lights Publishers, a book-publishing venture, which helped start the careers of many alternative local and international poets. In 1956, Ferlinghetti published Allen Ginsberg’s book Howl and Other Poems, which resulted in his being arrested by the San Francisco Police for publishing “obscene work” and a subsequent trial that gained international attention. At the end, the judge concluded that “Howl” had “some redeeming social importance” and “was not obscene”; Ferlinghetti prevailed. City Lights became known as the heart of the Beat movement, which also included the writers Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and Jack Kerouac.
In 1994, San Francisco renamed a street in Ferlinghetti’s honor, and in 1998, he was named the first poet laureate of San Francisco. He is the recipient of many international awards and honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Award for Contribution to American Arts and Letters, the Robert Frost Memorial Medal, and the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award, presented for “outstanding service to the American literary community,” among others. In 2003, he was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2007, he was named Commandeur of the French Order of Arts and Letters. He died on February 22, 2021, in San Francisco, California.
From https://poets.org/poet/lawrence-ferlinghetti.
For more information about Lawrence Ferlinghetti:
“I Am Waiting”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42869/i-am-waiting-56d22183d718a
A Coney Island of the Mind: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/a-coney-island-of-the-mind1/
“Lawrence Ferlinghetti”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lawrence-ferlinghetti
“Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Poet Who Nurtured the Beats, Dies at 101”: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/obituaries/lawrence-ferlinghetti-dead.html
“Thank You, Lawrence Ferlinghetti”: https://lithub.com/thank-you-lawrence-ferlinghetti/
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Thomas Bernhard, (born Feb. 9/10, 1931, Cloister Heerland, Neth.—died Feb. 12, 1989, Gmunden, Austria), was an Austrian writer who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilization in general and Austrian culture in particular. Bernhard was born in a Holland convent; his mother, unwed at the time, had fled there from Austria to give birth. After a year, she returned to her parents in Vienna, where her father, writer Johannes Freumbichler (1881–1949), became the major influence on Bernhard. After surviving a life-threatening coma and repeated hospitalizations (1948–51) in tuberculosis sanatoriums, he studied music and drama in Salzburg and Vienna.
Bernhard achieved little success with several collections of poetry in the late 1950s, but in 1963 he gained notoriety with his first novel, Frost (Eng. trans. Frost). In such novels as Verstörung (1967; “Derangement,” Eng. trans. Gargoyles), Das Kalkwerk (1970; The Lime Works), and Korrektur (1975; Corrections), he combined complex narrative structure with an increasingly misanthropic philosophy. In 1973 Bernhard withdrew his drama Die Berühmten (“The Famous”) from the prestigious Salzburg Festival because of a controversy over staging. After its publication in 1984 his novel Holzfällen(Woodcutters, or Cutting Timber: An Irritation) was seized by police for allegedly criticizing a public figure. Even before its premiere in November 1988, Bernhard’s last play, Heldenplatz(“Heroes’ Square”), a bleak indictment of anti-Semitism in contemporary Austria, provoked violent protests. His other plays include Ein Fest für Boris (1968; A Party for Boris), Die Jagdgesellschaft (1974; The Hunting Party), Die Macht der Gewohnheit (1974; The Force of Habit), and Der Schein trügt(1983; Appearances Are Deceiving). Bernhard’s memoirs were translated in Gathering Evidence(1985), a compilation of five German works published between 1975 and 1982.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Bernhard.
For more information about Thomas Bernhard:
Concrete: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/12747/concrete-by-thomas-bernhard/
“The Art of Extinction: The bleak laughter of Thomas Bernhard”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/12/25/the-art-of-extinction
“Between the Rare Oases of Thought: On Thomas Bernhard and the Mind”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/rare-oases-thought-thomas-bernhard-mind/
“Thomas Bernhard is Dead at 58”: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/17/obituaries/thomas-bernhard-is-dead-at-58-his-last-play-enraged-austrians.html
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Bessie Smith (ca. 1895–1937) was a blues and jazz singer from the Harlem Renaissance who is remembered as the Empress of the Blues. Elizabeth “Bessie” Smith was the youngest child of seven, born to Laura and William Smith in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her father was a Baptist minister and day laborer and her mother a laundress. In 1900, William Smith died in a work accident and his wife and son Bud passed away in 1906. The six remaining Smith children, including Bessie, were orphaned and left to be raised by an aunt. Living in poverty, Smith began singing as a street performer on Ninth Street, Chattanooga’s center of music and dance, with her guitar-playing brother Andrew. The first published reference of a performance by Smith—when she was only 14 years old—was in the May 8, 1909, issue of the Indianapolis newspaper The Freedman. According to the review of her performance at Atlanta's 81 Theater, Smith captivated her audience through her contralto voice.
Smith refined her vocal style on the Black vaudeville stage. Her brother Clarence was a comedian and dancer in the Moses Stokes Traveling Show. Bessie was hired onto the circuit but shortly after left to join the Mother of the Blues, Ma Rainey, and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Smith became a mentee of Ma Rainey, learning how to command an audience and navigate the music business. By the time she was 24 years old, Smith had her own solo acts and was performing throughout the South and East Coast. In 1923, Smith signed with Columbia Records. Her first recording was “Down-hearted Blues,” written by blues singer Alberta Hunter and pianist Lovie Austin. The 1923 song was a major hit and it launched Smith into the national spotlight. Beyond blues, Smith played and recorded with jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Her incredible talent led her to become the highest paid Black entertainer of her time.
The Great Depression cut Smith’s recording career short, and her last recording was in 1933. Still, Smith performed across the country. In 1937, enroute to Chattanooga, Smith suffered fatal injuries in a car accident in Mississippi. Smith’s funeral was held in Philadelphia, where she had been living since 1923, and was attended by more than 5,000 people.
Throughout her career, Smith was unapologetically herself. She drank and was open about her romantic relationships with both men and women. Smith was married to Jack Gee from 1923 to 1929. Gee was unable to adjust to the show business life nor Smith’s bisexuality. Their marriage ended in 1929 when Smith learned about an affair between Gee and singer Gertrude Saunders. Smith incorporated the hardships of being Black working class in her lyrics by singing about poverty, racism, and sexism on top of singing about love and female sexuality. While some, such as the Black Swan Records, labeled her as “rough,” Smith’s ability to channel her personality and life experience into her voice is what made her stand out.
From https://nmaahc.si.edu/lgbtq/bessie-smith.
For more information about Bessie Smith:
“Reckless Blues”: https://genius.com/Bessie-smith-reckless-blues-lyrics
“Bessie Smith & Louis Armstrong - Reckless Blues, 1925”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd4_3yJD-Ds
“Forebears: Bessie Smith, The Empress of The Blues”: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/05/575422226/forebears-bessie-smith-the-empress-of-the-blues
“Life Story: Bessie Smith”: https://wams.nyhistory.org/confidence-and-crises/jazz-age/bessie-smith/
“How Bessie Smith Influenced A Century Of Popular Music”: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/747738120/how-bessie-smith-influenced-a-century-of-popular-music
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A note from the translator of this week’s Quotomania, James Romm:
This quote gives a good sense of why Seneca is so enjoyable to read in Latin or translate. His short clauses fairly crackle with energy; metaphors pop in and out elusively as though playing hide and seek. At times the language is so seductive that one hardly cares what's being said, though the message is usually, as here, a powerful and soul-searching one.
Seneca lived in the Rome of the first century AD and served under emperor Nero as a kind of chief minister, even while composing works of Stoic philosophy. The riddle of a committed moralist who abetted an immoral regime has fascinated readers for centuries, and ultimately cannot be solved except with reference to the paradoxes and contradictions of of human nature. In the work from which this quote comes, "On the Shortness of Life," Seneca inveighs against those who waste their time on business and legal dealings, yet he certainly gave much of his own time to such occupations during his political career. Many have accused him of hypocrisy, but when he writes as passionately as he does here, with the intensity of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, one wants to believe he's sincere.
Death was a constant preoccupation for Seneca, as seen in this quote. "We are dying every day," he said at two different points in his surviving writings (of which there are a vast number). That is, our life is a journey toward death, from the moment we're born. If we truly understood that, we wouldn't waste precious hours on meaningless things -- in modern terms, scrolling through social media or channel surfing. "Life's too short" is an expression we use but we don't really grasp the problem it represents. Life's not short in itself, writes Seneca in "On the Shortness of Life," but we make it so by the way that we live. If we lived to the fullest at all times, we would lengthen our lives and even enjoy a kind of immortality. His essay, retitled in my translation as "How to Have a Life," teaches us how to achieve this.
Seneca addressed his essay to his father-in-law, Pompeius Paulinus, who was serving Rome as praefectus annonae, the official in charge of managing Rome's grain supply. Though the essay is meant to reach a wide readership, he deals at one point with Paulinus's circumstances in very specific terms. How can you think about whether mice are getting into the silos, he asks, when you could be contemplating the motions of stars, the origins of the cosmos, the fate of the soul after death? It's a wonderful passage that reminds us how we're surrounded by dross if we don't lift our minds toward the heavens. Unfortunately Seneca never deals with the problem that mice may very well destroy the grain supply if everyone has their eyes on the Milky Way.
I've translated four small volumes of selections from Seneca and have one more in the works. In spending time with his essays I feel I'm following his most urgent advice in "On the Shortness of Life:" "Those who make time for wisdom are the only ones truly alive," he writes there; "they not only attend to their own lifespan but add every age to their own." That's a powerful incentive to read more Seneca.
For more information about Seneca:
How to Have a Life: An Ancient Guide to Using Our Time Wisely: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691219127/how-to-have-a-life
James Romm: http://www.jamesromm.com/books
“Seneca”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/seneca/
“The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/09/01/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-life/
“Such a Stoic”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/02/stoic-2
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Sir Peter Brook, (born March 21, 1925, London, Eng.—died July 2, 2022, Paris, France), British director and producer. After directing plays in Stratford-upon-Avon, he became director of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden (1947–50). He later directed several innovative Shakespearean productions that aroused controversy, including his 1962 staging of King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Co. During his long association with that company, he directed such other critically acclaimed productions as A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970). Brook won international fame with his avant-garde direction of Peter Weiss’s play Marat/Sade (1964). His films include Lord of the Flies (1963), King Lear (1970), and the six-hour Mahabharata(1989). In 1970 he moved to Paris, where he cofounded the International Centre for Theatre Research. Brook continued to work into the early 21st century.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Brook.
For more information about Peter Brook:
The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Shakespeare: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-quality-of-mercy-peter-brook/1114335100
“Peter Brook, Celebrated Stage Director of Scale and Humanity, Dies at 97”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/03/obituaries/peter-brook-dead.html
“For Peter Brook, the Experimental Showman, ‘Nothing Is Ever Finished’”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/theater/peter-brook-interview.html
“Peter Brook: ‘To give way to despair is the ultimate cop-out’”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/theater/peter-brook-interview.html
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Milan Kundera is the author of the novels The Joke, Farewell Waltz, Life Is Elsewhere, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and the short-story collection Laughable Loves—all originally written in Czech. His most recent novels Slowness, Identity, and Ignorance, as well as his nonfiction works The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The Curtain, and Encounter, were originally written in French.
From https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/milan-kundera-20154134342990.
For more information about Milan Kundera:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-milan-kundera?variant=32131838115874
“Milan Kundera, The Art of Fiction No. 81”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2977/the-art-of-fiction-no-81-milan-kundera
“A Talk With Milan Kundera”: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/19/magazine/a-talk-with-milan-kundera.html
“Why Read Milan Kundera?”: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/04/16/milan-kundera
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Albert Camus, (born Nov. 7, 1913, Mondovi, Alg.—died Jan. 4, 1960, near Sens, France), was an Algerian-French novelist, essayist, and playwright. Born into a working-class family, Camus graduated from the university in Algiers and then worked with a theatrical company, becoming associated with leftist causes. He spent the war years in Paris, and the French Resistance brought him into the circle of Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism. He became a leading literary figure with his enigmatic first novel, The Stranger (1942), a study of 20th-century alienation, and the philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), an analysis of contemporary nihilism and the concept of the absurd. The Plague (1947), his allegorical second novel, and “The Rebel” (1951), another long essay, developed related issues. Other major works include the short-story collection Exile and the Kingdom (1957) and the posthumous autobiographical novel The First Man (1994). His plays include Le Malentendu (1944) and Caligula(1944). Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He died in a car accident.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Albert-Camus.
For more information about Albert Camus:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Abraham Verghese about Camus, at 26:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-071-abraham-verghese
Edwidge Danticat about Camus, at 11:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-018-edwidge-danticat
Victor Brombert about Camus, at 11:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-034-victor-brombert
Nathalie Etoke about Camus, at 04:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-176-nathalie-etoke
The Fall: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fall-albert-camus/1100012266
“Albert Camus”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/
“Camus and the Political Tests of a Pandemic”: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/camus-and-the-political-tests-of-a-pandemic
“On Translating Camus”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/nov/28/translating-camus-the-outsider-sandra-smith
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Elizabeth Alexander is a prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author, renowned poet, educator, scholar, and cultural advocate. She is also president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder in the arts, culture, and humanities.
Dr. Alexander’s most recent book, The Trayvon Generation (2022), is a galvanizing meditation on the power of art and culture to illuminate America’s unresolved problem with race and the challenges facing young Black America. Among the fifteen books she has authored or co-authored, her poetry collection American Sublime was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2006, and her memoir, The Light of the World, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2015. Other works include Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 (2010), Power and Possibility: Essays, Reviews, Interviews (2007), The Black Interior: Essays (2004), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), Body of Life (1996), and The Venus Hottentot (1990).
Over the course of an esteemed career in education, Dr. Alexander has held distinguished professorships at Smith College, Columbia University, and Yale University, where she taught for fifteen years and chaired the African American Studies Department. She has been awarded the Jackson Poetry Prize, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the George Kent Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and three Pushcart Prizes for Poetry. Notably, Dr. Alexander composed and delivered “Praise Song for the Day” for the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Dr. Alexander is Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, serves on the Pulitzer Prize Board, and co-designed the Art for Justice Fund.
From http://www.elizabethalexander.net/about.
For more information about Elizabeth Alexander:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elizabeth Alexander: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-062-elizabeth-alexander
“Elizabeth Alexander”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-alexander
“Elizabeth Alexander: The Desire to Know Each Other”: https://onbeing.org/programs/desire-know-elizabeth-alexander-2/
The Trayvon Generation: https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/elizabeth-alexander/the-trayvon-generation/9781538737903/
“Elizabeth Alexander: ‘We Can Never Give Up Hope’”: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/elizabeth-alexander-trayvon-generation-interview/
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Anne Carson was born in Toronto, Ontario on June 21, 1950. With the help of a high school Latin instructor, she learned ancient Greek, which contributed to her continuing interest in classical and Hellenic literature. She attended St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto and, despite leaving twice, received her BA in 1974, her MA in 1975 and her PhD in 1981. She also studied Greek metrics for a year at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Since bursting onto the international poetry scene in 1987 with her long poem “Kinds of Water," Carson has published numerous books of poetry, including Float (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016); Red Doc> (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013); The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry;Autobiography of Red (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998); and Short Talks (Brick Books, 1992). Also a Classics scholar, Carson is the translator ofElectra (Oxford University Press, 2001), If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (Knopf, 2002), and An Oresteia (Faber and Faber, 2009), among others. She is also the author of Eros the Bittersweet (Princeton University Press, 1986).
Her awards and honors include the Lannan Literary Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the MacArthur Fellowship. She was also the Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany. Carson was the Director of Graduate Studies in Classics at McGill University and taught at Princeton University from 1980-1987. She has also taught classical languages and literature at Emory University, California College of the Arts, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. She currently teaches in New York University’s creative writing program.
From https://poets.org/poet/anne-carson.
For more information about Anne Carson:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Simon Critchley on Carson, at 12:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-008-simon-critchley
Decreation: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/24644/decreation-by-anne-carson/
“Anne Carson”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anne-carson
“Anne Carson, The Art of Poetry No. 88”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5420/the-art-of-poetry-no-88-anne-carson
“Anne Carson Punches a Hole Through Greek Myth”: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/anne-carson-punches-a-hole-through-greek-myth
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Harold Pinter, (born Oct. 10, 1930, London, Eng.—died Dec. 24, 2008, London), British playwright. Born into a working-class family, he acted with touring companies until 1959. His early one-act plays were followed by the full-length The Birthday Party (1958). His next major plays, The Caretaker (1960) and The Homecoming (1965), established his reputation as an innovative and complex dramatist, sometimes considered as belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd. He often used disjointed small talk and lengthy pauses in dialogue to convey a character’s thought, which often contradicts his speech. Pinter’s later plays include Old Times (1971), No Man’s Land (1975), Betrayal (1978; film, 1983), Mountain Language (1988), Moonlight(1993), and Celebration (2000). He also wrote radio and television plays, as well as screenplays for The Go-Between (1970), The French Lieutenant’s Woman(1981), The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), and Sleuth(2007). In 2005 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Harold-Pinter.
For more information about Harold Pinter:
“Harold Pinter: Nobel Lecture”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2005/pinter/lecture/
“Harold Pinter, Playwright of the Pause, Dies at 78”: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/theater/26pinter.html
“Harold Pinter, The Art of Theater No. 3”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4351/the-art-of-theater-no-3-harold-pinter
“Front Row, Harold Pinter”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gy71c
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Marcus Aurelius , in full Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustusorig. Marcus Annius Verus, (born April 26, AD 121, Rome—died March 17, 180, Vindobona [Vienna] or Sirmium, Pannonia), was a Roman emperor (161–180). He was born into a wealthy and prominent family. Hadrian arranged that Marcus and Lucius Verus be adopted by the designated future emperor Antoninus Pius, who dutifully groomed Marcus as his heir. On his accession, Marcus nevertheless shared power with his adoptive brother as coemperor, though he himself remained the more dominant. His reign was marked by numerous military crises, all the major frontiers being threatened by invasion. Struggles against the Parthians (162–166) were successful, but returning troops brought a devastating plague to Rome. With a concurrent German invasion, Roman morale declined; the Germans were repulsed, but Verus died during the campaign (169). Marcus made his son Commodus coemperor in 177. Though a man of gentle character and wide learning, Marcus opposed Christianity and supported persecution of its adherents. His Meditations on Stoicism, considered one of the great books of all times, gives a full picture of his religious and moral values. His reign is often thought to mark the Golden Age of Rome.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Marcus-Aurelius-Roman-emperor.
For more information about Marcus Aurelius:
Meditations: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6367/meditations-by-marcus-aurelius/
“Marcus Aurelius”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/
A Companion to Marcus Aurelius: https://www.wiley.com/en-ie/A+Companion+to+Marcus+Aurelius-p-9781405192859
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Edgar Kunz is the author of the poetry collections Tap Out (Mariner, 2019), a NYT New & Noteworthy pick, and Fixer, forthcoming from Ecco/HarperCollins in August 2023.
His writing has been supported by fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Vanderbilt University, where he earned his MFA, and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow.
His poems appear widely, including in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. He lives in Baltimore and teaches at Goucher College.
From https://www.edgarkunz.com.
For more information about Edgar Kunz:
“Piano”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/07/piano
Tap Out: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781328518125
“Conversations with Contributors: Edgar Kunz”: https://theadroitjournal.org/2020/04/20/conversations-with-contributors-edgar-kunz/
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J. A. Baker was a native of Essex, England. He wrote The Peregrine and The Hill of Summer. J. A. Baker was born on August 6, 1926, and died on December 26, 1987.
From https://www.nyrb.com/collections/j-a-baker.
For more information about J. A. Baker:
The Peregrine: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-peregrine?variant=1094932429
“Werner Herzog on the Books Every Filmmaker Should Read”: https://lithub.com/werner-herzog-on-the-books-every-filmmaker-should-read/
“Robert Macfarlane: ‘I Wanted the Reader to Undertake a Descent into the Darkness.’”: https://lithub.com/robert-macfarlane-i-wanted-the-reader-to-undertake-a-descent-into-the-darkness/
“Legendary Werner Herzog talks books with author Robert Pogue Harrison”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MncnB-kofRo
“The secret life behind the writer of England’s greatest cult book”: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-secret-life-behind-the-writer-of-england-s-greatest-cult-book-1.3333957
My House of Sky: The Life of J. A. Baker: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/my-house-of-sky-hetty-saunders/
"Time Out: The Beauty of J. A. Baker's 'The Peregrine'": https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-beauty-of-j-a-bakers-the-peregrine
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Born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in the town of Parral in southern Chile on July 12, 1904, Pablo Neruda led a life charged with poetic and political activity. In 1923, he sold all of his possessions to finance the publication of his first book, Crepusculario (“Twilight”). He published the volume under the pseudonym “Pablo Neruda” to avoid conflict with his family, who disapproved of his occupation. The following year, he found a publisher for Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (“Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair”). The book made a celebrity of Neruda, who gave up his studies at the age of twenty to devote himself to his craft.
In 1927, Neruda began his long career as a diplomat in the Latin American tradition of honoring poets with diplomatic assignments. After serving as honorary consul in Burma, Neruda was named Chilean consul in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1933. While there, he began a friendship with the visiting Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. After transferring to Madrid later that year, Neruda also met Spanish writer Manuel Altolaguirre. Together, the two men founded a literary review called Caballo verde para la poesîa in 1935. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 interrupted Neruda’s poetic and political development. He chronicled the horrendous years which included the execution of García Lorca in Espana en el corazon (1937), published from the war front. Neruda’s outspoken sympathy for the loyalist cause during the Spanish Civil War led to his recall from Madrid in 1937. He then moved to Paris and helped settle Spanish republican refugees in Chile.
Neruda returned to Chile in 1938 where he renewed his political activity and wrote prolifically. Named Chilean Consul to Mexico in 1939, Neruda left Chile again for four years. Upon returning to Chile in 1943, he was elected to the Senate and joined the Communist Party. When the Chilean government moved to the right, they declared communism illegal and expelled Neruda from the Senate. He went into hiding. During those years he wrote and published Canto general (1950).
In 1952 the government withdrew the order to arrest leftist writers and political figures, and Neruda returned to Chile and married Matilde Urrutia, his third wife (his first two marriages, to Maria Antonieta Haagenar Vogelzang and Delia del Carril, both ended in divorce). For the next twenty-one years, he continued a career that integrated private and public concerns and became known as the people’s poet. During this time, Neruda received numerous prestigious awards, including the International Peace Prize in 1950, the Lenin Peace Prize and the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.
Diagnosed with cancer while serving a two-year term as ambassador to France, Neruda resigned his position, ending his diplomatic career. On September 23, 1973, just twelve days after the defeat of Chile’s democratic regime, the man widely regarded as the greatest Latin American poet since Darío died in Santiago, Chile.
From https://poets.org/poet/pablo-neruda.
For more information about Pablo Neruda:
“Pablo Neruda”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pablo-neruda
“Pablo Neruda”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1971/neruda/lecture/
The Poetry of Pablo Neruda: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/poetry-of-pablo-neruda-pablo-neruda/1100338669
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Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) is one of the best-loved authors of popular fiction of her generation. Her novels established her as a master storyteller, but she also wrote plays, short stories and biographies. Haunting and atmospheric, her work occupies a unique place in 20th century literature, appealing to a broad audience yet worthy of literary merit.
Daphne du Maurier’s first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931 to critical acclaim. She married Major Frederick Arthur Montague ('Boy') Browning in 1932 and had her first daughter, Tessa, in 1933. Her frank biography of her father, Gerald: A Portrait (1934) shocked some of her father’s admirers but also gained her recognition as a talented writer. In 1936, publication of Jamaica Inn propelled her to the top of the best-seller lists.
An unhappy period in Egypt as an army wife gave rise to Daphne du Maurier’s best-known novel, Rebecca (1938). An intense study of female jealousy, Rebecca was made into a successful film in 1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Frenchman’s Creek (1941) and Hungry Hill (1943) followed, both of which were also made into successful films. She had another daughter, Flavia, in 1937, and a son, Christian, in 1940, and while her husband was away at war, she moved back to Cornwall with the children to live in 'Menabilly', a house which she had loved since her early 20s.
During and after the war, the du Mauriers’ marriage became strained. This prompted her to write a play, The Years Between (performed in 1944), which explored the effects of war on marriage. My Cousin Rachel (1951) was followed by two collections of short stories, The Apple Tree (1952) and The Breaking Point(1959); the latter was also influenced by her psychological stress. The Scapegoat (1957), a novel exploring themes of stolen identity and the self, is appreciated by critics as a more serious work, though at the time it was pigeonholed as another of her romantic thrillers. In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock’s film version of her short story The Birds, was released and became a cult classic. The death of her husband, in 1965, affected Daphne du Maurier profoundly and her unease was compounded by a growing sense that her imaginative talent was waning. Unable to renew the lease on her treasured home, Menabilly, she moved to Kilmarth, in Par, where she wrote the well-received The House on the Strand in 1969, the same year that she was made a DBE. She subsequently entered into a period of creative and personal decline, culminating with a nervous breakdown in 1981. She died at home in Cornwall in 1989 at the age of 81.
From https://www.bl.uk/people/daphne-du-maurier.
For more information about Daphne du Maurier:
Rebecca: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rebecca-daphne-du-maurier/1100182387?ean=9780380730407
“In Praise of Daphne du Maurier”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/books/daphne-du-maurier-enthusiast.html
“Daphne du Maurier: In Rebecca’s Footsteps”: https://player.pbs.org/widget/partnerplayer/3051784528/?callsign=WLIW
“Sex, jealousy, and gender: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca 80 years on”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/23/olivia-laing-on-daphne-du-mauriers-rebecca-80-years-on
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Quentin Tarantino, in full Quentin Jerome Tarantino, (born March 27, 1963, Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.), is an American director and screenwriter whose films are noted for their stylized violence, razor-sharp dialogue, and fascination with film and pop culture.
Tarantino worked in a video store in California before selling two screenplays that became True Romance (1993) and Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994). In 1992 he made his directing debut with Reservoir Dogs, a violent film about a failed jewelry store robbery. Two years later he established himself as a leading director with Pulp Fiction. The provocative film, which featured intersecting crime stories, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival, and Tarantino later received (with Roger Avary) an Academy Award for best original screenplay. For Jackie Brown (1997), he adapted an Elmore Leonard novel about a flight attendant entangled in criminal activities.
Tarantino worked in a video store in California before selling two screenplays that became True Romance (1993) and Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994). In 1992 he made his directing debut with Reservoir Dogs, a violent film about a failed jewelry store robbery. Two years later he established himself as a leading director with Pulp Fiction. The provocative film, which featured intersecting crime stories, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival, and Tarantino later received (with Roger Avary) an Academy Award for best original screenplay. For Jackie Brown (1997), he adapted an Elmore Leonard novel about a flight attendant entangled in criminal activities. In addition to writing and directing, Tarantino also worked as an actor and producer.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Quentin-Tarantino.
For more information about Quentin Tarantino:
“Quentin Tarantino”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3712013.stm
“In Conversation: Quentin Tarantino”: https://www.vulture.com/2015/08/quentin-tarantino-lane-brown-in-conversation.html
“Quentin Tarantino: from the screen to the page”: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/quentin-tarantino-from-the-screen-to-the-page/
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Alfred Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, England on August 13, 1899. He was the youngest of three children born to William and Emma Jane Hitchcock. After attending a technical school at 15, Hitchcock spent the first years of his career as a draftsman, advertising designer, and writer. An interest in photography led to him working in London's film industry, first as a title card designer for silent movies and, just five years later, as a director.
In 1926, Hitchcock married his assistant director, Alma Reville, and in 1928 they had a daughter, Patricia. Hitchcock quickly gained notoriety as a director who delivered suspense, twist endings, and dark subject matter. His own personality and gallows humor were embedded in popular culture through interviews, film trailers, and cameo appearances in his own films. He was popular with audiences at home and abroad, and in 1939 the Hitchcock family moved to Hollywood. In the three decades that followed he would cement his legacy by directing and producing his most successful and enduring works. His television anthology, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, ran from 1955 to 1965 and made him a household name.
During his career, he created over fifty feature films in a career that saw not only the development of Hitchcock's own distinctive directorial style, but also landmark innovations in cinema. In 1929, Blackmail was his first feature film with sound and in 1948, his first colour film was Rope. Hitchcock himself has been credited with pioneering many camera and editing techniques for peers and aspiring directors to emulate.
Hitchcock collected many professional accolades including two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards. He was a five-time Academy Award nominee for Best Director and in 1940, his film Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture. In 1980, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. A husband, father, director, and the Master of Suspense, Sir Alfred Hitchcock passed away on April 29, 1980.
From http://www.alfredhitchcock.com/life-and-legacy/biography/.
For more information about Alfred Hitchcock:
“Alfred Hitchcock”: https://www.oscars.org/collection-highlights/alfred-hitchcock/?
“Never Given a Close Look to Hitchcock? Start Here”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/movies/alfred-hitchcock-rope.html
“Alfred Hitchcock Papers”: https://digitalcollections.oscars.org/digital/collection/p15759coll7
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Only a handful of details are known about the life of Sappho. She was born around 615 B.C. to an aristocratic family on the Greek island of Lesbos. Evidence suggests that she had several brothers, married a wealthy man named Cercylas, and had a daughter named Cleis. She spent most of her adult life in the city of Mytilene on Lesbos where she ran an academy for unmarried young women. Sappho's school devoted itself to the cult of Aphrodite and Eros, and Sappho earned great prominence as a dedicated teacher and poet. A legend from Ovid suggests that she threw herself from a cliff when her heart was broken by Phaon, a young sailor, and died at an early age. Other historians posit that she died of old age around 550 B.C.
The history of her poems is as speculative as that of her biography. She was known in antiquity as a great poet: Plato called her "the tenth Muse" and her likeness appeared on coins. It is unclear whether she invented or simply refined the meter of her day, but today it is known as "Sapphic" meter. Her poems were first collected into nine volumes around the third century B.C., but her work was lost almost entirely for many years. Merely one twenty-eight-line poem of hers has survived intact, and she was known principally through quotations found in the works of other authors until the nineteenth century. In 1898 scholars unearthed papyri that contained fragments of her poems. In 1914 in Egypt, archeologists discovered papier-mâché coffins made from scraps of paper that contained more verse fragments attributed to Sappho.
Three centuries after her death the writers of the New Comedy parodied Sappho as both overly promiscuous and lesbian. This characterization held fast, so much so that the very term "lesbian" is derived from the name of her home island. Her reputation for licentiousness would cause Pope Gregory to burn her work in 1073. Because social norms in ancient Greece differed from those of today and because so little is actually known of her life, it is difficult to unequivocally answer such claims. Her poems about Eros, however, speak with equal force to men as well as to women.
Sappho is not only one of the few women poets we know of from antiquity, but also is one of the greatest lyric poets from any age. Most of her poems were meant to be sung by one person to the accompaniment of the lyre (hence the name, "lyric" poetry). Rather than addressing the gods or recounting epic narratives such as those of Homer, Sappho's verses speak from one individual to another. They speak simply and directly to the "bittersweet" difficulties of love. Many critics and readers alike have responded to the personal tone and urgency of her verses, and an abundance of translations of her fragments are available today.
From https://poets.org/poet/sappho.
For more information about Sappho:
“Sappho Fragment 16”: https://thebookbindersdaughter.com/2019/03/02/sappho-fragment-16/
“Sappho”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sappho
“Who Was Sappho?”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/16/girl-interrupted
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Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) was the Newbery Medal-winning author of more than 60 books, including the much-loved A Wrinkle in Time. Born in 1918, L'Engle grew up in New York City, Switzerland, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Her father was a reporter and her mother had studied to be a pianist, and their house was always full of musicians and theater people. L'Engle graduated cum laude from Smith College, then returned to New York to work in the theater. While touring with a play, she wrote her first book, The Small Rain, originally published in 1945. She met her future husband, Hugh Franklin, when they both appeared in The Cherry Orchard. Upon becoming Mrs. Franklin, L'Engle gave up the stage in favor of the typewriter. In the years her three children were growing up, she wrote four more novels. Hugh Franklin temporarily retired from the theater, and the family moved to western Connecticut and for ten years ran a general store. Her book Meet the Austins, an American Library Association Notable Children's Book of 1960, was based on this experience. Her science fantasy classic A Wrinkle in Time was awarded the 1963 Newbery Medal. Two companion novels, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet (a Newbery Honor book), complete what has come to be known as The Time Trilogy, a series that continues to grow in popularity with a new generation of readers. Her 1980 book A Ring of Endless Light won the Newbery Honor. L'Engle passed away in 2007 in Litchfield, Connecticut.
From https://us.macmillan.com/author/madeleinelengle.
For more information about Madeleine L’Engle:
“New York Day by Day; Author to Readers”: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/25/nyregion/new-york-day-by-day-author-to-readers.html
“Meet Madeleine L’Engle”: https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/literary-arts/meet-madeleine-lengle/
“Madeleine L’Engle’s Inventions”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/04/12/the-storyteller-cynthia-zarin
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Born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1942, Schjeldahl was a college dropout who fell into journalism with a job at the Jersey Journal in Jersey City at the age of 20. He spent a year in New York, befriending the poet Frank O’Hara, who was part of the New York School of experimental painters and writers.
Schjeldahl once planned a biography of O’Hara, who died young in a dune buggy accident in 1966, but never completed it. The surviving interview tapes became the basis for the book Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me, a 2022 memoir by Schjeldahl and Alderson’s daughter, Ada Calhoun, exploring her complex relationship with her father. After a year in Paris, Schjeldahl returned to New York, in 1965, “an ambitious poet, a jobber in journalism, and a tyro art nut,” as he put it earlier this year. Though he had no background in criticism, Thomas B. Hess hired Schjeldahl to write reviews for ARTnews, kickstarting one of the field’s most storied careers.
“I thought it was normal for poets to write art criticism. So I started doing that, and people liked what I did,” he told Interview magazine in 2014. Over the course of his nearly 60 years in the business, Schjeldahl won numerous accolades for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, and the Howard Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009, the New York Review of Books called him “our best—our most perspicacious and wittiest—art critic.”
From https://news.artnet.com/art-world/peter-schjeldahl-has-died-80-2197014.
For more information about Peter Schjeldahl:
“The New Life”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31358
“The Art of Dying”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/the-art-of-dying
“Remembering Peter Schjeldahl”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/postscript/10/31/remembering-peter-schjeldahl-a-consummate-critic
“Peter Schjeldahl, New York Art Critic With a Poet’s Voice, Dies at 80”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/nyregion/peter-schjeldahl-dead.html
“The Thrilling Mind of Wallace Stevens”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-thrilling-mind-of-wallace-stevens
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Walter Pater, in full Walter Horatio Pater, (born August 4, 1839, Shadwell, London, England—died July 30, 1894, Oxford, Oxfordshire), was an English critic, essayist, and humanist whose advocacy of “art for art’s sake” became a cardinal doctrine of the movement known as Aestheticism. Pater was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he studied Greek philosophy under Benjamin Jowett. He then settled in Oxford and read with private pupils. In 1864 he was elected to a fellowship at Brasenose College. Pater’s early intention to enter the church gave way at this time to a consuming interest in classical studies. Pater then began to write for the reviews, and his essays on Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Pico della Mirandola, Michelangelo, and others were collected in 1873 as Studies in the History of the Renaissance (later called simply The Renaissance). His delicate, fastidious style and sensitive appreciation of Renaissance art in these essays made his reputation as a scholar and an aesthete, and he became the centre of a small group of admirers in Oxford. In the concluding essay in The Renaissance, Pater asserted that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that it acknowledges neither moral standards nor utilitarian functions in its reason for being. These views brought Pater into an association with Algernon Charles Swinburne and with the Pre-Raphaelites.
Marius the Epicurean (1885) is his most substantial work. It is a philosophical romance in which Pater’s ideal of an aesthetic and religious life is scrupulously and elaborately set forth. The setting is Rome in the time of Marcus Aurelius; but this is a thin disguise for the characteristically late-19th-century spiritual development of its main character. Imaginary Portraits (1887) are shorter pieces of philosophical fiction in the same mode. Appreciations (1889) is a return to the critical essay, this time largely on English subjects. In 1893 came Plato and Platonism, giving an extremely literary view of Plato and neglecting the logical and dialectical side of his philosophy. Pater’s Greek Studies (1895), Miscellaneous Studies (1895), and Essays from The Guardian (privately printed, 1896; 1901) were published posthumously. Also published posthumously was his unfinished romance, Gaston de Latour (1896).
The primary influence on Pater’s mind was his classical studies, coloured by a highly individual view of Christian devotion and pursued largely as a source of extremely refined artistic sensations. In his later critical writings Pater continued to focus on the innate qualities of works of art, in contrast to the prevailing tendency to evaluate them on the basis of their moral and educational value. Pater’s early influence was confined to a small circle in Oxford, but he came to have a widespread effect on the next literary generation. Oscar Wilde, George Moore, and the aesthetes of the 1890s were among his followers and show obvious and continual traces both of his style and of his ideas.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Pater.
For more information about Walter Pater:
The Renaissance: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520036642/the-renaissance
“Art vs. aestheticism: the case of Walter Pater”: https://newcriterion.com/issues/1995/5/art-vs-aestheticism-the-case-of-walter-pater
The Renaissance: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2398/2398-h/2398-h.htm
“Walter Pater”: https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/walter-pater/
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American poet, essayist, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, in Boston, Massachusetts. After studying at Harvard and teaching for a brief time, Emerson entered the ministry. He was appointed to the Old Second Church in his native city, but soon became an unwilling preacher. Unable in conscience to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after the death of his nineteen-year-old wife of tuberculosis, Emerson resigned his pastorate in 1831.
The following year, he sailed for Europe, visiting Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Carlyle, the Scottish-born English writer, was famous for his explosive attacks on hypocrisy and materialism, his distrust of democracy, and his highly romantic belief in the power of the individual. Emerson's friendship with Carlyle was both lasting and significant; the insights of the British thinker helped Emerson formulate his own philosophy. On his return to New England, Emerson became known for challenging traditional thought. In 1835, he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson, and settled in Concord, Massachusetts. Known in the local literary circle as "The Sage of Concord," Emerson became the chief spokesman for Transcendentalism, the American philosophic and literary movement. Centered in New England during the 19th century, Transcendentalism was a reaction against scientific rationalism.
Emerson's first book, Nature (1836), is perhaps the best expression of his Transcendentalism, the belief that everything in our world—even a drop of dew—is a microcosm of the universe. His concept of the Over-Soul—a Supreme Mind that every man and woman share—allowed Transcendentalists to disregard external authority and to rely instead on direct experience. "Trust thyself," Emerson's motto, became the code of Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and W. E. Channing. From 1842 to 1844, Emerson edited the Transcendentalist journal, The Dial. Emerson wrote a poetic prose, ordering his essays by recurring themes and images. His poetry, on the other hand, is often called harsh and didactic. Among Emerson's most well known works are Essays, First and Second Series (1841, 1844). The First Series includes Emerson's famous essay, "Self-Reliance," in which the writer instructs his listener to examine his relationship with Nature and God, and to trust his own judgment above all others.
Emerson's other volumes include Poems (1847), Representative Men (1850), The Conduct of Life (1860), and English Traits (1865). His best-known addresses are The American Scholar (1837) and The Divinity School Address, which he delivered before the graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, shocking Boston's conservative clergymen with his descriptions of the divinity of man and the humanity of Jesus. Emerson's philosophy is characterized by its reliance on intuition as the only way to comprehend reality, and his concepts owe much to the works of Plotinus, Swedenborg, and Böhme. A believer in the "divine sufficiency of the individual," Emerson was a steady optimist. His refusal to grant the existence of evil caused Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry James, Sr., among others, to doubt his judgment. In spite of their skepticism, Emerson's beliefs are of central importance in the history of American culture. Ralph Waldo Emerson died of pneumonia on April 27, 1882.
From https://poets.org/poet/ralph-waldo-emerson.
For more information about Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., about Emerson, at 21:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-104-eddie-s-glaude-jr
Samantha Rose Hill about Emerson, at 17:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-171-samantha-rose-hill
“Ralph Waldo Emerson”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ralph-waldo-emerson
“Ralph Waldo Emerson”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/mayjune/feature/ralph-waldo-emerson
“Ralph Waldo Emerson”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emerson/
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Though poet and essayist Mary Ruefle was born outside Pittsburgh, she spent her youth moving around the United States and Europe with her military family. She has published over a dozen books of poetry, including Dunce (2019), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, My Private Property (2016), Indeed I Was Pleased with the World (2007), and The Adamant (1989), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize. She is also the author of the essay collection Madness, Rack, and Honey (2012) and the work of fiction The Most of It (2008). A Little White Shadow (2006), her book of erasures—found texts in which all but a few words have been erased from the page—reveals what Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called “haiku-like minifables, sideways aphorisms, and hauntingly perplexing koans.” Ruefle's erasures are available to view on her website; a full-color facsimile of her erasure Incarnation of Now was published in a limited edition by See Double Press.
Ruefle’s free-verse poetry is at once funny and dark, domestic and wild. Reviewing Post Meridian (2000), critic Lisa Beskin of the Boston Review observed, “Like John Ashbery and James Tate, Mary Ruefle investigates the multiplicities and frailties of being with an associative inventiveness and a lightness of touch; the purposefulness of her enquiry never eclipses the remarkable beauty of her work.”
Ruefle earned a BA from Bennington College. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as a Whiting Writers’ Award, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, Great American Prose Poems (2003), American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006), and The Next American Essay (2002). Ruefle has taught at Vermont College and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Vermont.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-ruefle.
For more information about Mary Ruefle:
“28 Short Lectures: Mary Ruefle”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=227__gQc8s4
Madness, Rack, and Honey: https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/madness-rack-and-honey
“Becoming Invisible: An Interview with Mary Ruefle”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/12/12/becoming-invisible-an-interview-with-mary-ruefle/
“Mary Ruefle”: https://www.maryruefle.com
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Clarice Lispector, (born December 10, 1920, Chechelnyk, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died December 9, 1977, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was a novelist and short-story writer, and one of Brazil’s most important literary figures, who is considered to be among the greatest women writers of the 20th century.
Escaping the Jewish pogroms that were part of life in Ukraine and other parts of the Russian Empire in the late 19th–early 20th century, Lispector at age five immigrated with her parents and two older sisters to Brazil. There her mother died some four years later of syphilis, contracted from a group of Russian soldiers who had raped her. Lispector studied law for a time and then took up journalism.
Her first novel, Perto do coração selvagem(1944; Near to the Wild Heart), published when she was 24 years old, won critical acclaim for its sensitive interpretation of adolescence. In her later works, such as A maçã no escuro (1961; The Apple in the Dark), A paixão segundo G.H. (1964; The Passion According to G.H.), Água viva (1973; The Stream of Life ), A hora da estrela (1977; The Hour of the Star), and Um sopro de vida: pulsações (1978; A Breath of Life), her characters, alienated and searching for meaning in life, gradually gain a sense of awareness of themselves and accept their place in an arbitrary, yet eternal, universe. In 2011 the publishing company New Directions issued a new translation of A hora da estrelaand in 2012 issued new translations of Perto do coração selvagem, Água viva, and A paixão segundo G.H.
Lispector’s finest prose is found in her short stories. Collections such as Laços de família(1960; Family Ties) and A legião estrangeira(1964; The Foreign Legion) focus on personal moments of revelation in the everyday lives of the protagonists and the lack of meaningful communication among individuals in a contemporary urban setting. English translations of her stories were collected as The Complete Stories (2015).
Lispector achieved international fame with works that depict a highly personal, almost existentialist view of the human dilemma and are written in a prose style characterized by a simple vocabulary and elliptical sentence structure. She is notoriously difficult to translate. In contrast to the regional or national social concerns expressed by many of her Brazilian contemporaries, her artistic vision transcends time and place; her characters, in elemental situations of crisis, are frequently female and only incidentally modern or Brazilian.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clarice-Lispector.
For more information about Clarice Lispector:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Casey Gerald about Lispector, at 03:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-133-casey-gerald
Água Viva: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/agua-viva/
“Overlooked No More: Clarice Lispector, Novelist Who Captivated Brazil”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/obituaries/clarice-lispector-overlooked.html
“The True Glamour of Clarice Lispector”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-true-glamour-of-clarice-lispector
“Watch the Only Existing Footage of Clarice Lispector”: https://lithub.com/watch-the-only-existing-footage-of-clarice-lispector/
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C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born on April 29, 1863, in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s, and died on the same day in 1933. During his lifetime Cavafy was an obscure poet, living in relative seclusion and publishing little of his work. A short collection of his poetry was privately printed in the early 1900s and reprinted with new verse a few years later, but that was the extent of his published poetry. Instead, Cavafy chose to circulate his verse among friends.
Cavafy is the leading poet of the periphery, writing in Greek far from Greek lands. The body of his poetry includes the 154 poems of the “canon”; 37 “repudiated poems,” most of which are juvenilia written in romantic katharevousa; 75 “hidden” poems that were found finished in his papers; and 30 “unfinished” poems. His poems often feature historical figures or creations of the poet’s imagination, with frequent references to elements of Homeric, Hellenistic, and Byzantine years. Today, his poetry occupies a prominent place in both Greek and world literature.
You may read the complete C. P. Cavafy bio here https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/and discover the digital collection of the Cavafy Archive here https://cavafy.onassis.org/.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/c-p-cavafy and https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/.
For more information about C. P. Cavafy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy, at 11:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
The Collected Poems: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-collected-poems-9780199555956?cc=ca⟨=en&
“Cavafy Archive”: https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/
“Far Off”: https://cavafy.onassis.org/object/4kq8-sefw-mf5d/
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Benjamin Constant, in full Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, (born Oct. 25, 1767, Lausanne, Switz.—died Dec. 8, 1830, Paris), Franco-Swiss novelist and political writer, the author of Adolphe, a forerunner of the modern psychological novel. The son of a Swiss officer in the Dutch service, whose family was of French origin, he studied at Erlangen, Ger., briefly at the University of Oxford, and at Edinburgh. In 1787 he formed, in Paris, his first liaison, with Madame de Charrière, 27 years his senior. His republican opinions in no way suited him to the office of chamberlain to the duke of Brunswick, which he held for several years. In 1794 he chose the side of the French Revolution, abandoning his office and divorcing his wife, a lady of the court. Madame de Staël had much to do with his decision. Their tumultuous and passionate relationship lasted until 1806.
After the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (1799), Constant was nominated to the tribunate, but he quickly became, like Madame de Staël, an opponent of the Bonapartist regime. Expelled from the tribunate in 1802, he followed her into exile the year after. Thereafter he spent his time either at Madame de Staël’s salon at Coppet, near Geneva, or in Germany, chiefly at Weimar, where he met Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. Constant was the associate of the brothers Friedrich and August von Schlegel, the pioneers of the Romantic idea, and with them he inspired Madame de Staël’s book De l’Allemagne (“On Germany”).
In 1808 Constant secretly married Charlotte von Hardenberg. But his intellectual relationship with Madame de Staël and the group at Coppet remained unbroken. As a liberal he was disappointed by the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814, and he reconciled himself with the Napoleonic empire of the Hundred Days under the influence of Madame Récamier, the other great love of his life. On his return to Paris, Constant became one of the leaders of liberal journalism. He was elected a deputy in 1819. After the revolution of July 1830, he was appointed president of the council of state but died the same year.
During his exile, Constant began work on De la religion considérée dans sa source, ses formes, et ses développements, 5 vol. (1824–31; “On Religion Considered in Its Source, Its Forms, and Its Developments”), a historical analysis of religious feeling. He is better known, however, for his novels. Published in 1816 and written in a lucid and classical style, the autobiographical Adolphe (Eng. trans. Adolphe) describes in minute analytical detail a young man’s passion for a woman older than himself. Nearly 150 years after the publication of Adolphe, another of Constant’s autobiographical novels, Cécile, dealing with events between 1793 and 1808, was discovered and first published. Constant is also known for his Journaux intimes(“Intimate Journals”), first published in their entirety in 1952. They add to the autobiographical picture of Constant provided by his Le Cahier rouge (1907; The Red Notebook).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Constant.
For more information about Benjamin Constant:
Adolphe: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/202107/adolphe-by-benjamin-constant/
Adolphe: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13861/pg13861.html
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Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered “internal refugees” or “present-absent aliens.” Darwish lived for many years in exile in Beirut and Paris. He is the author of over 30 books of poetry and eight books of prose, and earned the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation, the Lenin Peace Prize, and the Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres Medal from France.
In the 1960s Darwish was imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. Considered a “resistance poet,” he was placed under house arrest when his poem “Identity Card” was turned into a protest song. After spending a year at a university of Moscow in 1970, Darwish worked at the newspaper Al-Ahram in Cairo. He subsequently lived in Beirut, where he edited the journal Palestinian Affairs from 1973 to 1982. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Al-Karmel. Darwish served from 1987 to 1993 on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1996 he was permitted to return from exile to visit friends and family in Israel and Palestine.
Mahmoud Darwish’s early work of the 1960s and 1970s reflects his unhappiness with the occupation of his native land. Carolyn Forché and Runir Akash noted in their introduction to Unfortunately It Was Paradise (2003) that “as much as [Darwish] is the voice of the Palestinian Diaspora, he is the voice of the fragmented soul.” Forché and Akash commented also on his 20th volume, Mural: “Assimilating centuries of Arabic poetic forms and applying the chisel of modern sensibility to the richly veined ore of its literary past, Darwish subjected his art to the impress of exile and to his own demand that the work remain true to itself, independent of its critical or public reception.” Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 in Houston, Texas.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mahmoud-darwish.
For more information about Mahmoud Darwish:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Fatima Bhutto about Darwish, at 19:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-116-fatima-bhutto
A River Dies of Thirst: Journals: https://archipelagobooks.org/book/a-river-dies-of-thirst/
“Mahmoud Darwish”: https://poets.org/poet/mahmoud-darwish
“In Memory of Mahmoud Darwish”: https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2008-fall/selections/in-memory-of-mahmoud-darwish/
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Lydia Davis is the author of Essays One, a collection of essays on writing, reading, art, memory, and the Bible. She is also the author of The End of the Story: A Novel and many story collections, including Varieties of Disturbance, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award for Fiction; Can’t and Won’t (2014); and The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, described by James Wood in The New Yorker as “a grand cumulative achievement.” Davis is also the acclaimed translator of Swann’s Way and Madame Bovary, both awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize, and of many other works of literature. She has been named both a Chevalier and an Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and in 2020 she received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.
From https://us.macmillan.com/author/lydiadavis.
For more information about Lydia Davis:
The Cows: https://www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/the-cows-lydia-davis
“Lydia Davis, The Art of Fiction No. 227”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6366/art-of-fiction-no-227-lydia-davis
“Interview with Lydia Davis”: https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/interview-with-lydia-davis/
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Randall Jarrell was born on May 6, 1914 in Nashville. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Vanderbilt University. From 1937 to 1939 he taught at Kenyon College, where he met John Crowe Ransom and Robert Lowell, and then at the University of Texas.
Jarrell’s first book of poems, Blood for a Stranger (Harcourt, 1942), was published in 1942, the same year he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He soon left the Air Corps for the U.S. Army and worked as a control tower operator, an experience which provided much material for his poetry.
Jarrell’s reputation as a poet was established in 1945, while he was still serving in the army, with the publication of his second book, Little Friend, Little Friend (Dial Press, 1945), which bitterly and dramatically documents the intense fears and moral struggles of young soldiers. Other volumes followed, all characterized by great technical skill, empathy with the lives of others, and an almost painful sensitivity.
Following the war, Jarrell accepted a teaching position at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and remained there, except for occasional absences to teach elsewhere, until his death. Jarrell is highly regarded not only as a poet, but also as a peerless literary essayist, and was considered the most astute (and most feared) poetry critic of his generation. Robert Lowell, in an essay published after Jarrell’s death, wrote, “What Jarrell’s inner life was in all its wonder, variety, and subtlety is best told in his poetry [...] His gifts, both by nature and by a lifetime of hard dedication and growth, were wit, pathos, and brilliance of intelligence. These qualities, dazzling in themselves, were often so well employed that he became, I think, the most heartbreaking English poet of his generation...Always behind the sharpened edge of his lines, there is the merciful vision, his vision, partial like all others, but an illumination of life, too sad and radiant for us to stay with long—or forget.”
Randall Jarrell was struck by a car and killed at the age of fifty-one on October 14, 1965.
From https://poets.org/poet/randall-jarrell.
For more information about Randall Jarrell:
“A Girl in a Library”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=78&issue=1&page=10
Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374281113/missingout
“Randall Jarrell”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/randall-jarrell
“Randall Jarrell Reads From His Work”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIoyckh1R90
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Patti Smith (American, b.1946) is a singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist, known for her role in the punk rock movement of the 1970s. Born in Chicago, and raised in South Jersey, she studied at Glassboro State Teachers College, before moving to New York City in 1967. There, she met and befriended Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom she maintained a close friendship and artistic partnership until his death.
Throughout the 1970s, Smith developed a reputation as a poet and performance artist. In 1975, she released her debut album, Horses, which would go on to become one of the most influential and critically successful albums of all time.
In 1979, and continuing into the 1980s, Smith largely disappeared from the public scene, moving to Detroit with her husband, MC5 guitarist, Fred “Sonic” Smith, and devoting herself to domestic life. Following her husband’s death in 1994, Smith returned to the music and art scene, beginning with her successful comeback album, Gone Again.
She has also been featured in a number of art exhibitions, including Strange Messenger at the Andy Warhol Museum in 2002, and Rockaway!, hosted by MoMA PS1 in 2014. In addition, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2005, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
From http://www.artnet.com/artists/patti-smith/biography.
For more information about Patti Smith:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Fred Wiseman about Smith, at 14:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-169-fred-wiseman
“Wild Leaves (Live)”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQkUcli5Z8I
“Wild Leaves”: https://www.facebook.com/nowness/videos/patti-smith-wild-leaves/10155237921147454/
“Patti Smith is Always Going to Be a Worker”: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/patti-smith-is-always-going-to-be-a-worker
“Patti Smith Looks Back on Life”:
https://www.npr.org/2015/10/23/451116315/patti-smith-looks-back-on-life-before-she-became-the-godmother-of-punk
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Alexander, Freiherr von Humboldt, (born Sept. 14, 1769, Berlin, Prussia—died May 6, 1859, Berlin), was a German naturalist and explorer. In 1792 he joined the mining department of the Prussian government, where he invented a safety lamp and established a technical school for miners. From 1799 he explored Central and South America, traveling in the Amazon jungles and the Andean highlands. During these journeys he discovered the connection between the Amazon and Orinoco river systems and surmised that altitude sickness was caused by lack of oxygen. He studied the oceanic current off the western coast of South America; it became known as the Humboldt Current (now the Peru Current). He returned to Europe in 1804. His research helped lay the foundation for comparative climatology, drew a connection between a region’s geography and its flora and fauna, and added to an understanding of the development of the Earth’s crust. In Paris he used his financial resources to help Louis Agassiz and others launch careers. In 1829 he traveled to Russia and Siberia and made geographic, geologic, and meteorologic observations of Central Asia. During the 1830s he investigated magnetic storms. The last 25 years of his life were spent writing Kosmos, an account of the structure of the universe as then known.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Alexander-von-Humboldt.
For more information about Alexander von Humboldt:
“Who Was Alexander von Humboldt?”: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/who-was-alexander-von-humboldt-180974473/
“Humboldt in the New World”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/novemberdecember/feature/humboldt-in-the-new-world
“The Very Great Alexander von Humboldt”: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/10/22/very-great-alexander-von-humboldt/
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Heraclitus, also spelled Heracleitus or Herakleitos, (born c.540 BCE, Ephesus, Anatolia [now Selçuk, Turkey]—died c. 480) was a Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, in which fire forms the basic material principle of an orderly universe. Little is known about his life, and the one book he apparently wrote is lost. His views survive in the short fragments quoted and attributed to him by later authors.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heraclitus.
For more information about Herakleitos:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Natasha Trethewey about Herakleitos, at 28:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-145-natasha-trethewey
Lawrence Wilkerson about Herakleitos, at 26:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-071-lawrence-wilkerson
“Heraclitus”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/
7 Greeks: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/7-greeks/
“Davenport’s pleiad”: https://newcriterion.com/issues/1995/11/davenports-pleiad
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Gilles Deleuze, (born January 18, 1925, Paris, France—died November 4, 1995, Paris), was a French writer and antirationalist philosopher. Deleuze began his study of philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1944. Appointed to the faculty there in 1957, he later taught at the University of Lyons and the University of Paris VIII, where he was a popular lecturer. He retired from teaching in 1987.
Two of Deleuze’s early publications, David Hume (1952; with Andre Cresson) and Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), were historical studies of thinkers who, though in different ways, emphasized the limited powers of human reason and mocked the pretensions of traditional philosophy to discern the ultimate nature of reality. In the 1960s Deleuze began to philosophize in a more original vein, producing two major works, Difference and Repetition (1968) and The Logic of Sense (1969). In the former he argued against the devaluation of “difference” in Western metaphysics and tried to show that difference inheres in repetition itself.
A central theme of Deleuze’s work during this period was what he called the “Eleatic-Platonic bias” of Western metaphysics—i.e., the preference, which originated with the pre-Socratic school of Eleaticism and the subsequent philosophy of Plato, for unity over multiplicity (“the one” over “the many”) and for sameness over difference. According to Deleuze, this bias, which manifests itself in the characteristic philosophical search for the abstract “essences” of things, falsifies the nature of experience, which consists of multiplicities rather than unities. In order to do justice to reality as multiplicity, therefore, a completely new set of philosophical concepts is required. Deleuze also criticized traditional metaphysics for its “arboreal” or “treelike” character—i.e., its conception of reality in terms of hierarchy, order, and linearity—and compared his own thought, by contrast, to the structure of a rhizome, an underground plant stem whose growth is aimless and disordered.
Following the student uprising in Paris in May 1968, Deleuze’s thought became more politically engaged. Anti-Oedipus (1972), the first volume of a two-volume work (Capitalism and Schizophrenia) written with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari (1930–92), is an extended attack on traditional psychoanalysis and the concept of the Oedipus complex, which the authors contend has been used to suppress human desire in the service of normalization and control. The book concludes with a rather naive celebration of schizophrenia as a heroic expression of social nonconformity. In the second volume, A Thousand Plateaus (1980), which they present as a study in “nomadology” and “deterritorialization” (the former term suggesting the nomadic lifestyle of Bedouin tribes, the latter a general state of flux and mobility), Deleuze and Guattari condemn all species of rationalist metaphysics as “state philosophy.” In 1995, depressed by chronic illness and his generally deteriorating health, Deleuze committed suicide.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gilles-Deleuze.
For more information about Gilles Deleuze:
“Gilles Deleuze”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/deleuze/
“Gilles Deleuze Seminars”: https://deleuze.cla.purdue.edu/gilles-deleuze
“What Is Becoming of Deleuze?”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/what-is-becoming-of-deleuze/
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Poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22, 1892. In 1912, Millay entered her poem "Renascence" to The Lyric Year's poetry contest, where she won fourth place and publication in the anthology. This brought her immediate acclaim and a scholarship to Vassar College, where she continued to write poetry and became involved in the theater. In 1917, the year of her graduation, Millay published her first book, Renascence and Other Poems (Harper, 1917). At the request of Vassar's drama department, she also wrote her first verse play, The Lamp and the Bell (1921), a work about love between women.
After graduating from Vassar, Millay moved to New York City's Greenwich Village, where she lived with her sister Norma in a nine-foot-wide attic. Millay published poems in Vanity Fair, the Forum, and others while writing short stories and satire under the pen name Nancy Boyd. She and Norma acted with the Provincetown Players in the group's early days, befriending writers such as poet Witter Bynner, critic Edmund Wilson, playwright and actress Susan Glaspell, and journalist Floyd Dell. Millay publishedA Few Figs from Thistles (Harper & Brothers, 1920), a volume of poetry which drew much attention for its controversial descriptions of female sexuality and feminism. In 1923, Millay was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver (Flying Cloud Press, 1922). In addition to publishing three plays in verse, Millay also wrote the libretto of one of the few American grand operas, The King's Henchman (Harper & Brothers, 1927).
Millay married Eugen Boissevain in 1923, and the two were together for twenty-six years. Boissevain gave up his own pursuits to manage Millay's literary career, setting up the readings and public appearances for which Millay grew famous. Edna St. Vincent Millay died at the age of fifty-eight on October 18, 1950, in Austerlitz, New York.
From https://poets.org/poet/edna-st-vincent-millay.
For more information about Edna St. Vincent Millay:
“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46464/time-does-not-bring-relief-you-all-have-lied
“Edna St. Vincent Millay”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edna-st-vincent-millay
Collected Poems: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/collected-poems-edna-st-vincent-millay?variant=32205623427106
“Defiant and Unsinkable: The Ethos of Edna St. Vincent Millay”: https://lithub.com/defiant-and-unsinkable-the-ethos-of-edna-st-vincent-millay/
“How Fame Fed on Edna St. Vincent Millay”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/16/how-fame-fed-on-edna-st-vincent-millay-diaries-rapture-melancholy
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Annie Ernaux, née Duchesne, was born in 1940 in Lillebonne Normandy. A few years later her parents moved to Yvetot, where they kept a café and grocery shop in a working-class district of the town. She studied at a private Catholic secondary school in Yvetot, encountering girls from more middle-class backgrounds, and experiencing shame of her working-class parents and milieu for the first time. In 1958, at eighteen, she left home for the summer to look after children in a summer camp (colonie de vacances).
During that summer, living for the first time with a group of people of her own age, she had her first sexual experiences, recounted in her recent work Mémoire de fille (A Girl’s Story). In this same book, she also writes about her stay in London as an au pair in 1960, and her first attempt at Higher Education which took the form of primary teacher training in Rouen. At the end of the book we see Annie returning to Rouen from London to take a degree in literature, having abandoned her primary school teacher training course. She had also already written the first pages of her first, unpublished novel in London.
The years that followed saw her married with two sons, qualifying as a secondary school teacher in two competitive examinations, the Capès and the still more prestigious agrégation, and teaching French in a secondary school in Annecy, Haute Savoie. One of her rare returns to Normandy coincided with her father’s final illness and death in 1967. In 1974 Annie Ernaux published her first book, Cleaned Out, a fictionalized account of the illegal abortion she underwent in 1964, and her move from working-class to middle-class culture through education. In 1977 the family moved to Cergy-Pontoise, a new town in the Paris region. Ernaux eventually left secondary school teaching and took up a post at the Cned, Centre for Distance Education. She won both literary acclaim in the form of the Prix Renaudot, and a large readership with the publication of her account of her father’s life, A Man’s Place in 1983. After her divorce in the early 1980s, Ernaux remained in her house in Cergy, where she lives to this day. In 2000 she retired from her teaching post, and devoted herself to writing, and in 2008 published The Years, considered by many to be her crowning achievement in terms both of its content and innovative form, intertwining personal and collective history over six decades. The success of this work was recognized by the award of the Marguerite Duras and the François Mauriac prizes, and the English translation shortlisted for the Man Booker prize International.
Her works overall have received the French language prize and the Marguerite Yourcenar prize, as well as publication of her almost complete works to date in the Quarto edition by Gallimard in 2011 (Ernaux is the first woman writer to be published in this series in her lifetime). In 2014 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cergy-Pontoise. In October 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.
From https://www.annie-ernaux.org/biography/.
For more information about Annie Ernaux:
Simple Passion: https://www.sevenstories.com/books/3493-simple-passion
“Nobel Prize in Literature is Awarded to Annie Ernaux”: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/06/books/nobel-prize-literature
“Annie Ernaux’s Justly Deserved Nobel”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/annie-ernauxs-justly-deserved-nobel
“A Voice in French Literature: Her Own”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/books/annie-ernaux-a-girls-story.html
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Annie Ernaux, née Duchesne, was born in 1940 in Lillebonne Normandy. A few years later her parents moved to Yvetot, where they kept a café and grocery shop in a working-class district of the town. She studied at a private Catholic secondary school in Yvetot, encountering girls from more middle-class backgrounds, and experiencing shame of her working-class parents and milieu for the first time. In 1958, at eighteen, she left home for the summer to look after children in a summer camp (colonie de vacances).
During that summer, living for the first time with a group of people of her own age, she had her first sexual experiences, recounted in her recent work Mémoire de fille (A Girl’s Story). In this same book, she also writes about her stay in London as an au pair in 1960, and her first attempt at Higher Education which took the form of primary teacher training in Rouen. At the end of the book we see Annie returning to Rouen from London to take a degree in literature, having abandoned her primary school teacher training course. She had also already written the first pages of her first, unpublished novel in London.
The years that followed saw her married with two sons, qualifying as a secondary school teacher in two competitive examinations, the Capès and the still more prestigious agrégation, and teaching French in a secondary school in Annecy, Haute Savoie. One of her rare returns to Normandy coincided with her father’s final illness and death in 1967. In 1974 Annie Ernaux published her first book, Cleaned Out, a fictionalized account of the illegal abortion she underwent in 1964, and her move from working-class to middle-class culture through education. In 1977 the family moved to Cergy-Pontoise, a new town in the Paris region. Ernaux eventually left secondary school teaching and took up a post at the Cned, Centre for Distance Education. She won both literary acclaim in the form of the Prix Renaudot, and a large readership with the publication of her account of her father’s life, A Man’s Place in 1983. After her divorce in the early 1980s, Ernaux remained in her house in Cergy, where she lives to this day. In 2000 she retired from her teaching post, and devoted herself to writing, and in 2008 published The Years, considered by many to be her crowning achievement in terms both of its content and innovative form, intertwining personal and collective history over six decades. The success of this work was recognized by the award of the Marguerite Duras and the François Mauriac prizes, and the English translation shortlisted for the Man Booker prize International.
Her works overall have received the French language prize and the Marguerite Yourcenar prize, as well as publication of her almost complete works to date in the Quarto edition by Gallimard in 2011 (Ernaux is the first woman writer to be published in this series in her lifetime). In 2014 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cergy-Pontoise. In October 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.
From https://www.annie-ernaux.org/biography/.
For more information about Annie Ernaux:
Les Années / The Years: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/556070/the-years-by-annie-ernaux/
“Nobel Prize in Literature is Awarded to Annie Ernaux”: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/06/books/nobel-prize-literature
“In Annie Ernaux, a Nobel Laureate Who Plumbs Her Own Passions”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/books/review/annie-ernaux-appraisal-nobel.html
“Annie Ernaux: ‘Uncompromising’ French author wins Nobel Literature Prize”: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63156199
“Annie Ernaux, a Memoirist Who Mistrusts Her Own Memories”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/a-memoirist-who-mistrusts-her-own-memories
“Meet The Translator: Alison L. Strayer”: https://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2020/02/27/meet-the-translator-alison-l-strayer-fitzcarraldofortnight/
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Groucho was born Julius Henry Marx on Oct 2 1890 in New York. He was the third of the five surviving sons of Sam and Minnie Marx. He was the first of the brothers to start a stage career aged 15 in an act called The Leroy Trio. Other acts followed, but none of them was a great success. Twice the other members of the act disappeared overnight and left him penniless in places far away from home.
When his Brothers came on stage they finally had success with the musical comedy called I'll Say She Is. It was at one of the performances of this show that Groucho got his painted moustache. He arrived late at the theater and used greasepaint to create a moustache. He found this so much easier than a glued-on moustache that he insisted on using this technique from then on. I'll Say She Is is was followed by two more Broadway hits - The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. The latter of which has the character of Captain Spaulding which remained (with the song Hooray for Captain Spaulding) a trademark for Groucho for the rest of his life.
The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers were also the first movies (except for one unreleased) made by the Brothers and were filmed in New York. The remaining movies were made in Hollywood. In the later years of the Brothers movie career Groucho started working on radio. He hosted several programmes and was a guest on many shows. His biggest success was the comedy quiz show You Bet Your Life which started in 1947. The show later moved to television and was on the air until 1961.
Groucho also appeared in a few movies without his brothers. Always being a liberal, Groucho sometimes made critical remarks about politics and had friends who were regarded as communist by the US of the 1950s. This led to Groucho being investigated by the FBI.
When Marx Brothers became popular again in the late sixties/early seventies Groucho made a comeback with a show in Carnegie Hall in 1972. At the film festival in Cannes in 1972 he was made Commandeur des Arts et Lettres and in 1974 he received a special Academy Award for the achievements of the Marx Brothers. Groucho died on August 19th 1977 at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. His ashes are at Eden Memorial Park, San Fernando, California.
From https://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/groucho.htm.
For more information about Groucho Marx:
“Groucho Marx’s superb letters to Warner Brothers in 1948”: https://glintoflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Groucho_Marx_Letters_to_Warner_Brothers.pdf
“Letters of Note”: https://lettersofnote.com/2011/02/21/i-had-no-idea-that-the-city-of-casablanca-belonged-exclusively-to-warner-bros/
“Groucho Marx”: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/124006%7C63642/Groucho-Marx#overview
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Bob Dylan was born on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in the city of Hibbing. As a teenager, he played in various bands and with time his interest in music deepened, with a particular passion for American folk music and blues. One of his idols was the folk singer Woody Guthrie. He was also influenced by the early authors of the Beat Generation, as well as by modernist poets. Dylan moved to New York City in 1961 and began to perform in clubs and cafés in Greenwich Village. He met the record producer John Hammond, with whom he signed a contract for his debut album, Bob Dylan (1962). In the following years, he recorded a number of albums which have had a tremendous impact on popular music: Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, Blonde On Blonde in 1966 and Blood On The Tracks in 1975. His productivity continued in the following decades, resulting in masterpieces like Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out of Mind (1997) and Modern Times (2006).
Dylan’s tours in 1965 and 1966 attracted a lot of attention. For a period, he was accompanied by film maker D. A. Pennebaker, who documented life around the stage in what would come to be the movie Dont Look Back (1967). Dylan has recorded a large number of albums revolving around topics such as: the social conditions of man, religion, politics and love. The lyrics have continuously been published in new editions starting in 1973, under the title WritingsandDrawings, subsequently changed to Lyrics. As an artist, he is strikingly versatile; he has been active as a painter, actor and scriptwriter. Besides his large production of albums, Dylan has published experimental work like the prose poetry collection Tarantula (1971). He has written an autobiography, Chronicles (2004), which depicts memories from the early years in New York and which provides glimpses of his life at the center of popular culture. Since the late 1980s, Bob Dylan has toured consistently, playing over 3000 concerts during the last 20 years. Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary culture is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of literary and musical analysis.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/biographical/.
For more information about Bob Dylan:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Steve Earle about Dylan, at 15:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-028-steve-earle
Rosanne Cash about Dylan, at 15:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“Mississippi”: https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/mississippi/
“Mississippi”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xaw-kODsFDE
“Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/arts/music/bob-dylan-rough-and-rowdy-ways.html
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C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born on April 29, 1863, in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s, and died on the same day in 1933. During his lifetime Cavafy was an obscure poet, living in relative seclusion and publishing little of his work. A short collection of his poetry was privately printed in the early 1900s and reprinted with new verse a few years later, but that was the extent of his published poetry. Instead, Cavafy chose to circulate his verse among friends.
Cavafy is the leading poet of the periphery, writing in Greek far from Greek lands. The body of his poetry includes the 154 poems of the “canon”; 37 “repudiated poems,” most of which are juvenilia written in romantic katharevousa; 75 “hidden” poems that were found finished in his papers; and 30 “unfinished” poems. His poems often feature historical figures or creations of the poet’s imagination, with frequent references to elements of Homeric, Hellenistic, and Byzantine years. Today, his poetry occupies a prominent place in both Greek and world literature.
You may read the complete C. P. Cavafy bio here https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/and discover the digital collection of the Cavafy Archive here https://cavafy.onassis.org/.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/c-p-cavafy and https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/.
For more information about C. P. Cavafy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy, at 11:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
The Collected Poems: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-collected-poems-9780199555956?cc=ca⟨=en&
“Cavafy Archive”: https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/
“Far Off”: https://cavafy.onassis.org/object/4kq8-sefw-mf5d/
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The son of Joseph-Francois Baudelaire and Caroline Archimbaut Dufays, Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris on April 9, 1821. Baudelaire’s father, who was thirty years older than his mother, died when the poet was six. Baudelaire was very close with his mother (much of what is known about his later life comes from the letters he wrote her), but was deeply distressed when she married Major Jacques Aupick. In 1833, the family moved to Lyon, where Baudelaire attended a military boarding school. Shortly before graduation, he was kicked out for refusing to give up a note passed to him by a classmate. Baudelaire spent the next two years in Paris’s Latin Quarter, pursuing a career as a writer and accumulating debt. It is also believed that he contracted syphilis around this time.
In 1841, Baudelaire’s parents sent him to India, hoping the experience would help reform his bohemian urges. He left the ship, however, and returned to Paris in 1842. Upon his return, he received a large inheritance, which allowed him to live the life of a Parisian dandy. He developed a love for clothing and spent his days in art galleries and cafés. He also experimented with hashish and opium. Baudelaire also fell in love with Jeanne Duval, who inspired the “Black Venus” section of Les Fleurs du mal. By 1844, he had spent nearly half of his inheritance. His family won a court order that appointed a lawyer to manage Baudelaire’s fortune and to pay him a small “allowance” for the rest of his life.
To supplement his income, Baudelaire wrote art criticism, essays, and reviews for various journals. His early criticism of contemporary French painters, such as Eugene Delacroix and Gustave Courbet, earned him a reputation as a discriminating, if idiosyncratic, critic. In 1847, he published the autobiographical novella La Fanfarlo. His first publications of poetry also began to appear in journals in the mid-1840s. In 1854 and 1855, he published translations of Edgar Allan Poe, whom he called a “twin soul.“ His translations were widely acclaimed.
In 1857, Auguste Poulet-Malassis published the first edition of Les Fleurs du mal. Baudelaire was so concerned with the quality of the printing that he took a room near the press to help supervise the book’s production. Six of the poems, which described lesbian love and vampires, were condemned as obscene by the public safety section of the Ministry of the Interior. The ban on these poems was not lifted in France until 1949. In 1861, Baudelaire added thirty-five new poems to the collection. Les Fleurs du mal afforded Baudelaire a degree of notoriety; other writers, including Gustave Flaubert and Victor Hugo, publicly praised the poems. Flaubert wrote to Baudelaire, extolling his artistry: “You have found a way to inject new life into Romanticism. You are unlike anyone else [which is the most important quality].” Unlike earlier Romantics, Baudelaire looked to the urban life of Paris for inspiration. He argued that art must create beauty from even the most depraved or “non-poetic” situations.
Les Fleurs du mal, with its explicit sexual content and juxtapositions of urban beauty and decay, only added to Baudelaire’s reputation as a poète maudit (cursed poet). Baudelaire enhanced this reputation by flaunting his eccentricities; for instance, he once asked a friend in the middle of a conversation “Wouldn't it be agreeable to take a bath with me?” Due to the abundance of stories about the poet, it is difficult to sort fact from fiction.
In the 1860s, Baudelaire continued to write articles and essays on a wide range of subjects and figures. He was also publishing prose poems, which were posthumously collected in 1869 as Petits poèmes en prose (Little Poems in Prose). By calling these non-metrical compositions poems, Baudelaire was the first poet to make a radical break from verse.
In 1862, Baudelaire began to suffer nightmares and increasingly bad health. He left Paris for Brussels in 1863 to give a series of lectures, but had several strokes that resulted in partial paralysis. On August 31, 1867, at the age of forty-six, Charles Baudelaire died in Paris. Although doctors at the time didn’t mention it, it is likely that syphilis led to terminal illness. His reputation as poet was secure: the Symbolists who led the next major movement in French poetry— Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud—claimed him as a predecessor. In the twentieth century, thinkers and artists as diverse as Jean-Paul Sartre, Walter Benjamin, Robert Lowell, and Seamus Heaney, have celebrated his work.
From https://poets.org/poet/charles-baudelaire.
For more information about Charles Baudelaire:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Alex Ross about Baudelaire, at 22:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-046-alex-ross
“Meditation”: https://fleursdumal.org/poem/321
“Charles Baudelaire”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-baudelaire
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Anaïs Nin (born February 21, 1903, Neuilly, France—died January 14, 1977, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) was a French-born author of novels and short stories whose literary reputation rests on the eight published volumes of her personal diaries. Her writing shows the influence of the Surrealist movement and her study of psychoanalysis under Otto Rank. Brought to New York City by her mother in 1914, Nin was educated there but later returned to Europe. She launched her literary career with the publication of D.H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study (1932); the book led to a lifelong friendship with the American author Henry Miller.
At the beginning of World War II Nin returned to New York City. There she continued—at her own expense—to print and publish her novels and short stories, and, although no critical acclaim was forthcoming, her works were admired by many leading literary figures of the time. Not until 1966, with the appearance of the first volume of her diaries, did she win recognition as a writer of significance. The success of the diary provoked interest in her earlier work Cities of the Interior (1959), a five-volume roman-fleuve, or continuous novel, which consists of Ladders to Fire (1946), Children of the Albatross (1947), The Four-Chambered Heart (1950), A Spy in the House of Love (1954), and Solar Barque (1958).
Nin’s literary contribution was a subject of controversy in her lifetime and remained so after her death. Many critics admired her unique expression of femininity, her lyrical style, and her psychological insight. Some dismissed her concern with her own fulfillment as self-indulgent and narcissistic. Opinion was further divided by the posthumous Delta of Venus: Erotica (1977) and later collections of previously unpublished erotic stories written on commission during the financially lean years of the early 1940s. Her other works of fiction included a collection of short stories, Under a Glass Bell (1944); the novels House of Incest (1936), Seduction of the Minotaur(1961), and Collages (1964); and three novelettes collected in Winter of Artifice (1939).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anais-Nin.
For more information about Anaïs Nin:
The Diary of Anais Nin: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-diary-of-anais-nin-volume-1-1931-1934-anais-nin/1111350303
“In Pursuit of the Extraordinary: Anaïs Nin Reads from Her Famous Diaries”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/09/27/anais-nin-reads-from-diary/
“The Wild, Impassioned World of Anaïs Nin’s Diaries”: https://lithub.com/the-wild-impassioned-world-of-anais-nins-diaries/
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Appointed United States Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in 2010, William Stanley Merwin had a career that spanned seven decades. A poet, translator, gardener and environmental activist, Merwin has become one of the most widely read and honored poets in America. He died at home at the age of 91, in the house he built, among the thousands of palms he planted, on Friday, March 15, 2019.
Born September 30, 1927, in New York City, William Stanley Merwin was the son of a Presbyterian minister, for whom he began writing hymns at the age of five. He was raised in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and attended Princeton University on a scholarship. As a young man, Merwin went to Europe and developed a love of languages that led to work as a literary translator. Over the years, his poetic voice moved from the more formal to a more distinctly American voice. As the Atlantic Monthly said, “The intentions of Merwin’s poetry are as broad as the biosphere yet as intimate as a whisper. He conveys in the sweet simplicity of grounded language a sense of the self where it belongs, floating between heaven, earth, and the underground.”
He has lived in Majorca, London, France, Mexico and several places in the United States, as well as Boston and New York. In 1976, Merwin moved to Hawaii to study with Robert Aitken, a Zen Buddhist teacher. He married Paula Dunaway, in 1983, and settled on Maui. For over 40 years, they lived in a home that William designed and helped build, surrounded by acres of land once devastated and depleted from years of erosion, logging and toxic agricultural practices. Together, the Merwins painstakingly restored the land into one of the most comprehensive palm gardens in the world. He continued to live, write and garden in Hawaii until he died at home on Friday, March 15th, 2019.
From https://merwinconservancy.org/about-w-s-merwin/.
For more information about W. S. Merwin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Wayne Koestenbaum on Merwin, at 09:42: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-166-wayne-koestenbaum
Joy Harjo on Merwin, at 02:52: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-153-joy-harjo
Edward Hirsch on Merwin, at 19:54: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
Naomi Shihab Nye on Merwin, at 24:16: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
The Shadow of Sirius: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/the-shadow-of-sirius-by-w-s-merwin/
“Worn Words”: https://merwinconservancy.org/2017/01/worn-words-by-ws-merwin/
“W. S. Merwin on Hope and What to Do On the Last Day of the World”: https://improvisedlife.com/2020/04/27/w-s-merwin-on-hope-and-what-to-do-on-the-last-day-of-the-world/
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Notes from the translator and reader of this week’s Quotomania, Eileen Cheng-yin Chow:
Perhaps it is fitting that I join you for the first time in your Quotomania in the heart of autumn.
少年不識愁滋味 In youth I knew nothing of the taste of sorrow
愛上層樓。 I liked to climb high towers,
愛上層樓。 I liked to climb high towers
為賦新詞強說愁。 To conjure up a bit of sorrow to make new verse.
而今識盡愁滋味 Now I know only too well the taste of sorrow.
欲說還休。 I begin to speak yet pause,
欲說還休。 I begin to speak yet pause
卻道天涼好個秋。 And say instead, “My, what a cool and lovely autumn.”
- Xin Qiji 辛棄疾 (1140-1207)
trans. Eileen Cheng-yin Chow
By the beginning of the thirteenth century, the warrior-official and poet Xin Qiji 辛棄疾 (1140-1207) had been long sidelined during peacetime, demoted, and had been drifting through a decade of minor posts in remote lands.
Xin was born in a fractious time and place: in the north, to a Han family of Song Dynasty loyalists, even while the formerly nomadic Jurchens had already vanquished the Song throughout northeastern China and were now established as the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234). What remained of the Song was now driven to the southern lands, where the dynastic court set up and ruled as the Southern Song (1127-1279). Throughout his life, Xin Qiji strove to win back the “mountains and lakes” from the Jin; but even his military victories and tactical treatises came to be viewed with suspicion if not outright hostility by a Song court more interested in appeasement. Over six hundred of Xin’s poems and a few pieces of prose are extant. All were written after his retreat to the south.
Such are the biographical particulars.
Over the centuries, Xin Qiji has been a favorite and malleable subject of nationalist myth-making: the fierce loyalist, the Han patriot, the official whose brilliance went unappreciated in his own time, a man born time out of joint (生不逢時 sheng bu feng shi). His poems, especially his short lyrics (ci) are widely, widely known, and taught to even young schoolchildren throughout the Sinosphere. I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t know this verse - which means I probably first encountered it when I was 3 or 4, back when I learned new poems by heart daily to recite to my grandfather. How odd, now, to imagine generations upon generations of small schoolchildren intoning, “My, what a cool and lovely autumn” – when back then we were all firmly in the first poetic stanza of life?
The poem is written as a “ci” 詞 - a metric style that reached its apogee roughly from the Six Dynasties era to the late Song Dynasty (from the 6th to the 13th centuries), though poems were very much still composed in ci long after, even to the present day. Ci literally means “song lyric” - and had its origins in popular songs mainly performed (or composed to be performed) by professional singing girls. Even after ci was transformed into an elevated literary metric form suitable for serious topics and in which musical accompaniment was optional, they still retained the suggestion of lyrical lightness –and sometimes the gendered flirtatiousness– of their origins. Ci were conventionally titled, simply, “To the tune of…” in lieu of an occasional title as would be the case for “shi” 詩, the older and more canonical equivalent to the English term “poetry.”
By Xin Qiji’s time, poets often wrote in both verse forms, and the distinction between writing shi “poetry is that which is intently on the mind” (詩言志 shi yan zhi), and crafting ci, song lyrics metrically set to an existing popular tune (think “Yellow Rose of Texas”) – was frankly, quite blurred. Rather than as a generic song, Xin’s ci lyric here has definitely been read in light of his biography: his early brilliance and favor by the court, and his late in life disappointments.
But the poem also stands alone. Each time I have shared this ci on Twitter, I am astounded by how widely it resonates - with those who also know it well and delight in the shock of nostalgia, and with those who know absolutely nothing of 12th century battles, of classical Chinese poetic forms, let alone the poet Xin Qiji and his life story. Its language is quite simple. No complex literary allusions or dense language; a very straightforward meter and rhyme scheme; meaning built out of simple repetition. Even in translation and almost a millenium later, we still hear him.
The beauty of this lyric is its simplicity. And so I tried to keep the English as plain as possible.
There are a few quirks in the translation - but that could be said of any poetic translation - and of course, room for variants (e.g. the word “regret” or “melancholy” for sorrow, or “up a floor” for climbing high towers). I also did not attempt to rhyme, as I do think the contemporary English association we have with rhyme is quite different, and would produce an unintended and jarring distance from the original. Xin’s poem is a song. And so I tried to capture a bit of itsmellifluousness – vowel assonances and sonic echoes in the lines, rather than abiding by strict meter or rhyme.
愁 (chou), “sorrow,” is a very common word, but also multivalent and laden with poetic history. Throw a rock and one hits countless lines of verse, from antiquity to the latest pop ballad, all expressing “chou,” and especially in autumn. “Chou” and “qiu” also form poetically convenient end-of-line rhymes, whereas the English word “autumn” or “fall,” alas, does not. And, to be true to the simplicity of the poem – “sorrow” works quite well, I think. Plus I guess I also take a tiny bit of trans-lingual pleasure in the fact that “sorrow” happens to rhyme with “chou”!
A final note: 愁 (chou) is constructed of two common characters stacked upon one another: 秋 (qiu) autumn, and 心(xin) heart/mind, a minor visual delight that does get lost in its metamorphosis into alphabetic language.
If one were fanciful - as I know you are, Paul - one could even say that “sorrow is composed of a heart in autumn.”
The poem, once more, with feeling and with age:
少年不識愁滋味 In youth I knew nothing of the taste of sorrow
愛上層樓。 I liked to climb high towers,
愛上層樓。 I liked to climb high towers
為賦新詞強說愁。 To conjure up a bit of sorrow to make new verse.
而今識盡愁滋味 Now I know only too well the taste of sorrow.
欲說還休。 I begin to speak yet pause,
欲說還休。 I begin to speak yet pause
卻道天涼好個秋。 And say instead, “My, what a cool and lovely autumn.”
Poetry, then, is that which is left unsaid.
“My, what a cool and lovely autumn."
Eileen Cheng-yin Chow: https://scholars.duke.edu/person/eileen.chow
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John Freeman is the editor of Freeman's, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Dictionary of the Undoing, as well as Tales of Two Americas, an anthology about income inequality in America, and Tales of Two Planets, an anthology of new writing about inequality and the climate crisis globally. He is also the author of two poetry collections, Maps and The Park. His work is translated into more than twenty languages, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. The former editor of Granta, he teaches writing at New York University.
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/96608/john-freeman/.
For more information about John Freeman:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
John Freeman: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-190-john-freeman
Wind, Trees: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/wind-trees-by-john-freeman/
“Dusk”: https://orionmagazine.org/article/writers-artists-on-the-influence-of-barry-lopez/#freeman
“Editor John Freeman, a Powerful Force in the Literary World”: https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-john-freeman-20171212-story.html
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Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, was a master’s student at Boston University when she met Plath’s father, Otto Plath, who was her professor. They were married in January of 1932. Otto taught both German and biology, with a focus on apiology, the study of bees. In 1940, when Plath was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically defined Plath's relationships and her poems—most notably in her elegiac and infamous poem "Daddy."
Plath kept a journal from the age of eleven and published her poems in regional magazines and newspapers. Her first national publication was in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950, just after graduating from high school. In 1950, Plath matriculated at Smith College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1955. After graduation, Plath moved to Cambridge, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. In early 1956, she attended a party and met the English poet Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956.
Plath returned to Massachusetts in 1957 and began studying with Robert Lowell. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960 in England, and two years later in the United States. She returned to England, where she gave birth to her children Frieda and Nicholas, in 1960 and 1962, respectively. In 1962, Ted Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. That winter, Plath wrote most of the poems that would comprise her most famous book, Ariel. In 1963, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. She died on February 11 of that year.
Plath’s poetry is often associated with the Confessional movement, and compared to the work of poets such as Lowell and fellow student Anne Sexton. Often, her work is singled out for the intense coupling of its violent or disturbed imagery and its playful use of alliteration and rhyme.
Although only Colossus was published while she was alive, Plath was a prolific poet, and in addition to Ariel, Hughes published three other volumes of her work posthumously, including The Collected Poems, which was the recipient of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize. She was the first poet to posthumously win a Pulitzer Prize.
From https://poets.org/poet/sylvia-plath.
For more information about Sylvia Plath:
“Sylvia Plath”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/131782/the-unabridged-journals-of-sylvia-plath-by-sylvia-plath-edited-by-karen-v-kukil/
“Reviving the Journals of Sylvia Plath”: https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/reviving-the-journals-of-sylvia-plath
“Sylvia Plath, a Postwar Poet Unafraid to Confront Her Own Despair”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-sylvia-plath.html
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Sophocles (born c. 496, Colonus, near Athens—died 406 BC, Athens) was a Greek playwright. With Aeschylus and Euripides, he was one of the three great tragic playwrights of Classical Athens. A distinguished public figure in Athens, he served successively in important posts as a treasurer, commander, and adviser. He competed in dramatic festivals, where he defeated Aeschylus to win his first victory in 468 BC. He went on to achieve unparalleled success, writing 123 dramas for dramatic competitions and achieving more than 20 victories. Only seven tragedies survive in their entirety: Antigone, Ajax, Electra, The Trachinian Women, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, and Oedipus the King, his best-known work. He increased the size of the chorus and was the first to introduce a third actor onstage. For their supple language, vivid characterization, and formal perfection, his works are regarded as the epitome of Greek drama.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Sophocles.
For more information about Sophocles:
Oedipus Tyrannus: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0192
“Can Greek Tragedy Get Us Through the Pandemic?”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/can-greek-tragedy-get-us-through-the-pandemic
“Sophocles”: https://www2.classics.upenn.edu/myth/php/tragedy/index.php?page=sophocles
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Carlo Ginzburg (1939) has taught at the University of Bologna, at UCLA, at the Scuola Normale of Pisa. His books, translated into more than twenty languages, include The Night Battles; The Cheese and the Worms; Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method; The Enigma of Piero della Francesca; History, Rhetoric, and Proof; The Judge and the Historian; Wooden Eyes; No Island is an Island; Threads and Traces; Fear Reverence Terror: Five Essays in Political Iconography. He received the Aby Warburg Prize (1992), the Humboldt-Forschungs Prize (2007), the Balzan Prize for the History of Europe, 1400-1700 (2010) and sixteen honorary degrees from different universities.
From https://history.ceu.edu/people/carlo-ginzburg.
For more information about Carlo Ginzburg:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elif Shafak about Ginzburg, at 06:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-025-elif-shafak
Jorie Graham about Ginzburg, at 10:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-139-jorie-graham
The New History: Confessions and Conversations: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+New+History%3A+Confessions+and+Conversations-p-9780745630212
“Being Jewish, Becoming Jewish: Carlo Ginzburg in Conversation with Paul Holdengräber”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM5RIFd8mjE
“Interview with Carlo Ginzburg”: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4460-there-is-always-in-history-this-possibility-of-the-unexpected-interview-with-carlo-ginzburg
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C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born on April 29, 1863, in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s, and died on the same day in 1933. During his lifetime Cavafy was an obscure poet, living in relative seclusion and publishing little of his work. A short collection of his poetry was privately printed in the early 1900s and reprinted with new verse a few years later, but that was the extent of his published poetry. Instead, Cavafy chose to circulate his verse among friends.
Cavafy is the leading poet of the periphery, writing in Greek far from Greek lands. The body of his poetry includes the 154 poems of the “canon”; 37 “repudiated poems,” most of which are juvenilia written in romantic katharevousa; 75 “hidden” poems that were found finished in his papers; and 30 “unfinished” poems. His poems often feature historical figures or creations of the poet’s imagination, with frequent references to elements of Homeric, Hellenistic, and Byzantine years. Today, his poetry occupies a prominent place in both Greek and world literature.
You may read the complete C. P. Cavafy bio here https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/and discover the digital collection of the Cavafy Archive here https://cavafy.onassis.org/.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/c-p-cavafy and https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/.
For more information about C. P. Cavafy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy, at 11:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
“Che Fece … Il Gran Rifiuto”: https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/the-canon/che-fece-il-gran-rifiuto
“Cavafy Archive”: https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/
The Collected Poems, translation by Evangelos Sachperoglou: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-collected-poems-9780199555956?cc=us⟨=en&
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Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) was an American poet known for her work focusing on the African American experience and family life. Winner of the National Book Award and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Clifton is the only author to have two books of poetry nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the same year. She is best known for her collections Two-Headed Woman, Next, Good Woman, and Quilting. In addition to her several poetry collections, Clifton also wrote numerous books for children, including her Everett Anderson series.
From https://www.nyrb.com/collections/lucille-clifton.
For more information about Lucille Clifton:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Thelma Golden about Clifton, at 25:22: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-174-thelma-golden
How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton: https://www.boaeditions.org/products/how-to-carry-water-selected-poems-of-lucille-clifton
“Lucille Clifton”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucille-clifton
“Listening for Ms. Lucille”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/08/13/listening-for-ms-lucille/
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Primo Levi, (born July 31, 1919, Turin, Italy—died April 11, 1987, Turin), was an Italian-Jewish writer and chemist, noted for his restrained and moving autobiographical account of and reflections on survival in the Nazi concentration camps.
Levi was brought up in the small Jewish community in Turin, studied at the University of Turin, and graduated summa cum laude in chemistry in 1941. Two years later he joined friends in northern Italy in an attempt to connect with a resistance movement, but he was captured and sent to Auschwitz. While there, Levi worked as a slave labourer for an I.G. Farbenindustrie synthetic-rubber factory. Upon the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviets in 1945, Levi returned to Turin, where in 1961 he became the general manager of a factory producing paints, enamels, and synthetic resins; the association was to last some 30 years.
Levi’s first book, Se questo è un uomo (1947; If This Is a Man, or Survival in Auschwitz), demonstrated extraordinary qualities of humanity and detachment in its analysis of the atrocities he had witnessed. His later autobiographical works, La tregua (1963; The Truce, or The Reawakening) and I sommersi e i salvati (1986; TheDrowned and the Saved), are further reflections on his wartime experiences. Il sistema periodico (1975; The Periodic Table) is a collection of 21 meditations, each named for a chemical element, on the analogies between the physical, chemical, and moral spheres; of all of Levi’s works, it is probably his greatest critical and popular success. He also wrote poetry, novels, and short stories. A court in Turin ruled his death in 1987 a suicide, a verdict broadly accepted but debated by some. The Complete Works of Primo Levi (2015) contains English translations of his entire oeuvre, including pieces never previously available to Anglophone readers.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Primo-Levi.
For more information about Primo Levi:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edward Hirsch about Levi, at 11:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
If this Is a Man: https://www.amazon.com/This-Man-Truce-Primo-Levi/dp/0349100136
“The Art of Witness”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/28/the-art-of-witness
“Why Primo Levi Survives”: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/why-primo-levi-survives/413134/
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Janet Malcolm (1934–2021) was the author of many books, including In the Freud Archives; The Journalist and the Murderer; Two Lives: Alice and Gertrude, which won the 2008 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography; and Forty-One False Starts, which was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. She was a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. In 2017, Malcolm received the Gold Medal for Belles Lettres and Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
From https://us.macmillan.com/author/janetmalcolm.
For more information about Janet Malcolm:
Forty-one False Starts: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374534585/forty-one-false-starts
“Thoughts on Autobiography from an Abandoned Autobiography”: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2010/03/25/thoughts-on-autobiography-from-an-abandoned/
“The Legacy of Janet Malcolm and Her Journalistic Masterworks”: https://newrepublic.com/article/162790/legacy-janet-malcolm-journalism-masterworks
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F. Scott Fitzgerald, (born Sept. 24, 1896, St. Paul, Minn., U.S.—died Dec. 21, 1940, Hollywood, Calif.) was a U.S. novelist and short-story writer. Fitzgerald attended Princeton University but dropped out with bad grades. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre (1900–48), daughter of a respected Alabama judge. His works, including the early novels This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and Damned (1922) and the story collections Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) and All the Sad Young Men (1926), capture the Jazz Age’s vulgarity and dazzling promise. His brilliant The Great Gatsby (1925; film, 1926, 1949, 1974; TV movie 2001), a story of American wealth and corruption, was eventually acclaimed one of the century’s greatest novels. In 1924 Scott and Zelda became part of the expatriate community on the French Riviera, the setting of Tender Is the Night (1934; film, 1962). His fame and prosperity proved disorienting to them both, and he became seriously alcoholic. Zelda never fully recovered from a mental breakdown in 1932 and spent most of her remaining years in a sanitarium. In 1937 Scott moved to Hollywood to write film scripts; the experience inspired the unfinished The Last Tycoon (1941; film, 1976). He died of a heart attack at age 44.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/F-Scott-Fitzgerald.
For more information about F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Pico Iyer about Fitzgerald, at 04:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-004-pico-iyer
“Essay: The Crack-Up”: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/f-scott-fitzgerald-essay-the-crack-up/1028/
The Crack-Up: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/the-crack-up/
“F. Scott Fitzgerald: That Sad Young Man”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1926/04/17/that-sad-young-man
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Harold Hart Crane was born on July 21, 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio and began writing verse in his early teenage years. Though he never attended college, Crane read regularly on his own, digesting the works of the Elizabethan dramatists and poets William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne and the nineteenth-century French poets Charles Vildrac, Jules Laforgue, and Arthur Rimbaud. His father, a candy manufacturer, attempted to dissuade him from a career in poetry, but Crane was determined to follow his passion to write.
Living in New York City, he associated with many important figures in literature of the time, including Allen Tate, the novelist and short story writer Katherine Anne Porter, E. E. Cummings, and Jean Toomer, but his heavy drinking and chronic instability frustrated any attempts at lasting friendship. An admirer of T. S. Eliot, Crane combined the influences of European literature and traditional versification with a particularly American sensibility derived from Walt Whitman. His major work, the book-length poem, The Bridge, expresses in ecstatic terms a vision of the historical and spiritual significance of America. Like Eliot, Crane used the landscape of the modern, industrialized city to create a powerful new symbolic literature.
Hart Crane died by suicide on April 27, 1932, at the age of thirty-two, while sailing back to New York from Mexico.
From https://poets.org/poet/hart-crane.
For more information about Hart Crane:
“Hart Crane”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hart-crane
The Complete Poems of Hart Crane: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780871401786
“A Discussion with Hart Crane”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=29&issue=1&page=46
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Bruno Schulz was born 12.07.1892 in Drohobych (present Ukraine) and died there 19.11.1942 in tragic circumstances. He spent nearly his entire life there and was generally unwilling to travel. His voyages outside of his native city were sporadic and brief. He viewed Drohobych to be the center of the world and was a acute observer of life there, proving himself an excellent "chronicler." His writings and his art are both saturated with the realities of Drohobych. His stories are replete with descriptions of the town's main streets and landmarks, as well as with portraits of its inhabitants.
Schulz's output as a writer was relatively modest in terms of quantity, but exceptionally rich in quality and subject matter. It consists of two volumes of short stories - The Street of Crocodiles and The Hourglass Sanatorium - and a handful of texts the writer did not include in the first editions of these two collections. Apart from the stories, there is an unusually interesting set of letters, published in the so-called Księga listów / Book of Letters, as well as "critical essays" (primarily press reviews of literary works) that were only recently collected and published in a separate volume.
From https://culture.pl/en/artist/bruno-schulz.
For more information about Bruno Schulz:
“Undula”: https://sublunaryeditions.com/products/undula-bruno-schulz
“On Translating Bruno Schulz’s ‘Undula’”: https://sublunaryeditions.com/magazine/frank-garrett-on-translating-bruno-schulzs-undula
“The Age of Genius: The Legend of Bruno Schulz”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/06/08/the-age-of-genius
“Bruno Schulz’s Dream Worlds”: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/bruno-schulz-collected-stories-book-review/
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Simone Weil, (born February 3, 1909, Paris, France—died August 24, 1943, Ashford, Kent, England), was a French mystic, social philosopher, and activist in the French Resistance during World War II, whose posthumously published works had particular influence on French and English social thought.
To learn the psychological effects of heavy industrial labour, she took a job in 1934–35 in an auto factory, where she observed the spiritually deadening effect of machines on her fellow workers. In 1936 she joined an anarchist unit near Zaragoza, Spain, training for action in the Spanish Civil War, but after an accident in which she was badly scalded by boiling oil, she went to Portugal to recuperate. Soon thereafter Weil had the first of several mystical experiences, and she subsequently came to view her social concerns as “ersatz Divinity.” After the German occupation of Paris during World War II, Weil moved to the south of France, where she worked as a farm servant. She escaped with her parents to the United States in 1942 but then went to London to work with the French Resistance. To identify herself with her French compatriots under German occupation, Weil refused to eat more than the official ration in occupied France. Malnutrition and overwork led to a physical collapse, and during her hospitalization she was found to have tuberculosis. She died after a few months spent in a sanatorium.
Weil’s writings, which were collected and published after her death, fill about 20 volumes. Her most important works are La Pesanteur et la grâce (1947; Gravity and Grace), a collection of religious essays and aphorisms; L’Enracinement (1949; The Need for Roots), an essay upon the obligations of the individual and the state; Attente de Dieu (1950; Waiting for God), a spiritual autobiography; Oppression et Liberté (1955; Oppression and Liberty), a collection of political and philosophical essays on war, factory work, language, and other topics; and three volumes of Cahiers (1951–56; Notebooks). Though born of Jewish parents, Weil eventually adopted a mystical theology that came very close to Roman Catholicism. A moral idealist committed to a vision of social justice, Weil in her writings explored her own religious life while also analyzing the individual’s relation with the state and God, the spiritual shortcomings of modern industrial society, and the horrors of totalitarianism.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-Weil.
For more information about Simone Weil:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Naveen Kishore about Weil, at 15:38: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-007-naveen-kishore
Naomi Shihab Nye about Weil, at 06:17: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
“The Iliad, or the Poem of Force”: http://biblio3.url.edu.gt/SinParedes/08/Weil-Poem-LM.pdf
War and the Iliad: https://www.nyrb.com/products/war-and-the-iliad?variant=1094933081
“Simone Weil”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simone-weil/
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Lou Reed, byname of Lewis Allan Reed, (born March 2, 1942, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died October 27, 2013, Southampton, New York), was a singer-songwriter whose place in the rock pantheon rests primarily on his role in guiding the Velvet Underground, a New York City-based quartet that produced four poor-selling but enormously influential studio albums under Reed’s direction from 1965 to 1970.
After quitting the Velvets, he reemerged as a solo performer in England, where he was adopted by admirers such as glam rock pioneer David Bowie, who produced and performed on Reed’s breakthrough hit, “Walk on the Wild Side” (1973), and Mott the Hoople, who covered Reed’s Velvets classic “Sweet Jane.” His albums embraced everything from rote pop to heavy metal and included an orchestrated song cycle about a sadomasochistic love affair, Berlin (1973), and a double album of guitar drones, Metal Machine Music (1975), that are among his most notorious works. At the onset of the 1980s, Reed recruited his finest post-Velvets band, including guitarist Robert Quine and bassist Fernando Saunders, and reimmersed himself in raw guitar rock on The Blue Mask (1982), addressing his fears, ghosts, and joys with riveting frankness. No longer bedeviled by his addictions, Reed adopted a more-serious if less-daring tone on his recordings, peaking with three releases that were less concept albums than song cycles: New York (1989), about the spiritual death of his hometown; Songs for Drella (1990), an elegy for his 1960s mentor, Pop art conceptualist Andy Warhol, done in collaboration with former Velvets bandmate John Cale; and Magic and Loss (1991), inspired by the deaths of two friends. A romantic relationship with American performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson rejuvenated him again in the mid-1990s, resulting in the playful Set the Twilight Reeling (1997) and the harder-hitting Ecstasy (2000).
In 2000–01 Reed collaborated with director Robert Wilson to bring to the stage POEtry, which was based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe. The songs from the show were also packaged, with spoken-word interludes, on The Raven (2003)—an ambitious if critically panned experiment. It was followed by Animal Serenade(2004), an excellent live recording that echoed Reed’s landmark 1974 concert album Rock ’n’ Roll Animal. In 2006 Reed celebrated New York City in a book, Lou Reed’s New York, which collected his photography. Reed was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Velvet Underground in 1996 and as a solo performer in 2015.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lou-Reed.
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
“I’ll Be Your Mirror,” from The Velvet Underground & Nico: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZudHYTya-dQ
“I’ll Be Your Mirror Lyrics”: https://genius.com/The-velvet-underground-ill-be-your-mirror-lyrics
“Lou Reed, 1942-2013”: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/arts/music/lou-reed-dies-at-71.html
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Ingeborg Bachmann, (born June 25, 1926, Klagenfurt, Austria—died Oct. 17, 1973, Rome, Italy), was an Austrian author whose somber, surreal writings often deal with women in failed love relationships, the nature of art and humanity, and the inadequacy of language. Bachmann grew up in Kärnten during World War II and was educated at the Universities of Graz, Innsbruck, and Vienna. She received a doctoral degree in philosophy from Vienna in 1950. Bachmann’s literary career began in earnest in 1952, when she read her poetry to members of the avant-garde Gruppe 47. She produced two volumes of verse, Die gestundete Zeit (1953; “Borrowed Time”), about the sense of urgency produced by the passage of time, and Anrufung des grossen Bären (1956; “Invocation of the Great Bear”), featuring poems of fantasy and mythology. Of her several radio plays, the best known is Der gute Gott von Manhattan (1958; “The Good God of Manhattan” in Three Radio Plays). First broadcast on May 29, 1958, it is about a couple attacked by a covert group that seeks to destroy all traces of love.
Following Bachmann’s five landmark lectures on literature at the University of Frankfurt in 1959–60, she shifted her focus from poetry to fiction. During this period she also wrote the libretti for Hans Werner Henze’s operas Der Prinz von Homberg (1960; from a play by Heinrich von Kleist) and Der junge Lord(1965; from a fable by Wilhelm Hauff). Among her prose writings are Das dreissigtse Jahr(1961; The Thirtieth Year) and the lyrical novel Malina (1971; Eng. trans. Malina). She also published essays, stories, and more radio plays. Her death by fire may have been a suicide.
Much attention was given to Bachmann’s work both in her lifetime and after her death, and several of her writings were translated into English. A volume of selected poems, In the Storm of Roses, was published in 1986; it was the inspiration for Elizabeth Vercoe’s composition In the Storm: Four Songs on Texts by Ingeborg Bachmann for medium voice, clarinet, and piano. Some of Bachmann’s stories were translated in Three Paths to the Lake (1989), and a bilingual edition of her collected poems, translated and introduced by Peter Filkins, was published as Songs in Flight(1995). Fragments of two novels intended to complete the trilogy begun with Malina were translated and published together in a single volume entitled The Book of Franza & Requiem for Fanny Goldmann (1999).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ingeborg-Bachmann.
For more information about Ingeborg Bachmann:
“Every Day”: https://www.guernicamag.com/ingeborg_bachmann_7_1_11/
“Ingeborg Bachmann”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ingeborg-bachmann
“Feminize Your Canon: Ingeborg Bachmann”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/09/feminize-your-canon-ingeborg-bachmann/
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Persian lyric poet Hafez, or Hafiz, (born Khwāja Šamsu d-Dīn Muḥammad Hāfez-e Šīrāzī) grew up in Shiraz. Very little is known about his life, but it is thought that he may have memorized the Qur’anafter hearing his father recite passages. When his father died, he left school to work at a bakery and as a copyist. Hafiz became a poet at the court of Abu Ishak and also taught at a religious college. He is one of the most celebrated of the Persian poets, and his influence can be felt to this day. As the author of numerous ghazals expressing love, spirituality, and protest, he and his work continue to be important to Iranians, and many of his poems are used as proverbs or sayings.
Hafiz’s tomb is in Musalla Gardens in Shiraz.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hafez.
For more information about Hafez:
A Year with Hafiz: Daily Contemplations: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305695/a-year-with-hafiz-by-renderings-of-hafiz-by-daniel-ladinsky/
“Hafez”: https://poets.org/poet/hafez#poet__works
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Eugenio Montale was born into a family of businessmen in Genoa, Italy, on October 12, 1896. During World War I, he served as an infantry officer on the Austrian front. Orginially Montale had trained to be an opera singer, but when his voice teacher died in 1923, he gave up singing and concentrated his efforts on writing.
After his first book, Ossi di seppia (Cuttlefish Bones), appeared in 1925, Montale was received by critics as a profoundly original and experimental poet. His style mixed archaic words with scientific terms and idioms from the vernacular. He was dismissed from his directorship of the Gabinetto Vieusseux research library in 1938 for refusing to join the Fascist party. He withdrew from public life and began translating English writers such as Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Herman Melville, and Eugene O'Neill. In 1939, Le occasioni (The Occasions) appeared, his most innovative book, followed by La bufera e altro (The Storm and Other Things, 1956). It was this trio of books established him as a founder of the hermetic school of Italian poetry.
In 1948 he moved from Florence to Milan, where he became chief literary critic for Italy's primary newspaper, Corriere della Sera. In addition to writing poems, Montale was also a prolific essayist, writer of stories and travel sketches, distinguished music critic, translator, and amateur painter. He corresponded with Ezra Pound (despite Pound's Fascist sympathies), Italo Svevo, and Salvatore Quasimodo. In 1961, Montale was awarded an honorary degree at the University of Rome and shortly afterwards, at the universities of Milan, Cambridge, and Basel. In recognition of his work, as well as his courageous opposition to fascism, he was made a lifetime member of the Italian Senate in 1967.
After a long break from writing poetry, Montale published four collections during the last ten years of his life: Satura (Miscellany, 1971), Diario del '71 e del '72 (Diary of 1971 and 1972, 1973), Quaderno di quattro anni (Notebook of Four Years, 1977), and Altri versi e poesi disperse (Other and Uncollected Poems, 1981). In 1975 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his distinctive poetry which, with great artistic sensitivity, has interpreted human values under the sign of an outlook on life with no illusions." Montale died in Milan in 1981 at the age of 85.
From https://poets.org/poet/eugenio-montale.
For more information about Eugenio Montale:
From “Cuttlefish Bones/Movements” collection, The Collected Poems, 1920-1954: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374533281
“Eugenio Montale”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/eugenio-montale
“Eugenio Montale”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1975/montale/biographical/
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Kenneth Koch was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 27, 1925. He studied at Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree, and attended Columbia University for his PhD. As a young poet, Koch was known for his association with the New York School of poetry. Originating at Harvard, where Koch met fellow students Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery, the New York School derived much of its inspiration from the works of action painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Larry Rivers, whom the poets met in the 1950s after settling in New York City. The poetry of the New York School represented a shift away from the Confessional poets, a popular form of soul-baring poetry that the New York School found distasteful. Instead, their poems were cosmopolitan in spirit and displayed not only the influence of action painting, but of French Surrealism and European avant-gardism in general. In 1970 Ron Padgett and David Shapiro edited and published the first major collection of New York School poetry, An Anthology of New York Poets, which included seven poems by Koch.
Koch's association with the New York School worked, in effect, as an apprenticeship. Many critics found Koch's early work obscure, such as Poems (1953), and the epic Ko, or A Season on Earth (1959), yet remarked upon his subsequent writing for its clarity, lyricism, and humor, such as in The Art of Love (1975), which was praised as a graceful, humorous book. His other collections of poetry include New Addresses (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award and a finalist for the National Book Award; Straits (1998); One Train and On the Great Atlantic Rainway, Selected Poems 1950-1988 (both published in 1994), which together earned him the Bollingen Prize in 1995; Seasons of the Earth (1987); On the Edge (1986); Days and Nights (1982); The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 (1979); The Duplications (1977); The Pleasures of Peace(1969); When the Sun Tries to Go On (1969); Thank You (1962); and Seasons on Earth(1960).
Koch's short plays, many of them produced off- and off-off-Broadway, are collected in The Gold Standard: A Book of Plays. He has also published Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry (Scribners, 1998); The Red Robins (1975), a novel; Hotel Lambosa and Other Stories (1993); and several books on teaching children to write poetry, including Wishes, Lies and Dreams and Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? Koch wrote the libretto for composer Marcello Panni's The Banquet, which premiered in Bremen in June 1998, and his collaborations with painters have been the subject of exhibitions at the Ipswich Museum in England and the De Nagy Gallery in New York. His numerous honors include the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Kenneth Koch lived in New York City, where he was professor of English at Columbia University. Koch died on July 6, 2002, from leukemia.
From https://poets.org/poet/kenneth-koch.
For more information about Kenneth Koch:
“Kenneth Koch”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kenneth-koch
The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/94568/the-collected-poems-of-kenneth-koch-by-kenneth-koch/
“An Interview with Kenneth Koch”: https://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/koch.html
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Journalist, historian, and travel writer, Jan Morris was the renowned author of more than forty books. Her work ranges from such classics as Pax Britannica, The World of Venice, Hong Kong, and The Matter of Wales to the masterly essays published in Journeys, Destinations, and Among the Cities. She has also written a novel, Last Letters from Hav. An Honorary Litt.D. of the University of Wales and Glamorgan, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), she lived in Wales. Jan Morris died in 2020.
From https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Jan-Morris/1287676.
For more information about Jan Morris:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Pico Iyer about Morris, at 24:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-004-pico-iyer
Jan Morris on A Phone Call From Paul: https://a-phone-call-from-paul.simplecast.com/episodes/a-phone-call-from-paul-23-jan-morris
Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Trieste-and-the-Meaning-of-Nowhere/Jan-Morris/9781439136935
“The Many Lives of Jan Morris”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/books/jan-morris-in-my-minds-eye.html
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Virgil, or Vergil orig. Publius Vergilius Maro, (born Oct. 15, 70 BCE, Andes, near Mantua—died Sept. 21, 19 BCE, Brundisium), was the Greatest of Roman poets. The well-educated son of a prosperous provincial farmer, Virgil led a quiet life, though he eventually became a member of the circle around Octavian (later Caesar Augustus) and was patronized by Maecenas. His first major work, the 10 pastoral Eclogues (42–37), may be read as a prophecy of tranquility, and one has even been read as a prophecy of Christianity. The Georgics (37–30) point toward a Golden Age in the form of practical goals: the repopulation of rural lands and the rehabilitation of agriculture. His great epic, the Aeneid (begun c. 29, but unfinished at his death), is one of the masterpieces of world literature. A celebration of the founding of Rome by the legendary Aeneas at the request of Augustus, whose consolidation of power in 31–30 unified the Roman world, it also explores the themes of war and the pathos of unrequited love. In later centuries his works were regarded in the Roman Empire as virtually sacred. He was taken up reverently by Christians as well, including Dante, who, in his poem The Divine Comedy, made Virgil his guide through hell and purgatory.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Virgil.
For more information about Virgil:
“Virgil”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/virgil
The Aeneid: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/291193/the-aeneid-by-virgil-translated-by-robert-fagles-introduction-by-bernard-knox/
“Public Lives; A Bridge Between the Classics and the Masses”: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/nyregion/public-lives-a-bridge-between-the-classics-and-the-masses.html
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Baltasar Gracián, in full Baltasar Gracián y Morales, (born January 8, 1601, Belmonte de Calatayud, Spain—died December 6, 1658, Tarazona), was a philosopher and writer known as the leading Spanish exponent of conceptism (conceptismo), a style of dealing with ideas that involves the use of terse and subtle displays of exaggerated wit.
After studying at Calatayud and Zaragoza, Gracián entered the Jesuit order at the age of 18 and later became rector of the Jesuit college at Tarragona. His early works—El héroe (1637; The Hero), El discreto (1646; The Compleat Gentleman), and El oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647; The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle)—were largely efforts to educate people in the ethics of worldly life. His literary ideas on conceptism and the art of conceited writing (writing that continually shocks the reader by the use of startling metaphor) were clearly set forth in Agudeza y arte de ingenio (1642, 2nd ed. 1648; “Subtlety and the Art of Genius”). In defiance of his superiors, he published pseudonymously El criticón (1651, 1653, 1657; The Critick), a three-part philosophical novel considered by the 19th-century German pessimistic philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer one of the most important books ever written. In it he examined society from the standpoint of a savage and gave the clearest statement of his pessimistic philosophy with its emphasis on willpower and struggle.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Baltasar-Gracian.
For more information about Baltasar Gracián:
The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-art-of-worldly-wisdom-baltasar-gracian/1139765748?bvstate=pg:2/ct:r
“The Art of Prudence”: https://fs.blog/art-of-prudence/
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William James, philosopher and psychologist, was instrumental in establishing Harvard's psychology department, which at its inception was tied to the department of philosophy. James himself remained unconvinced that psychology was in fact a distinct discipline, writing in his 1892 survey of the field, Psychology: Briefer Course, "This is no science; it is only the hope of a science" (p. 335). Despite James’s skepticism, in the ensuing century this hope was fully realized in the department he helped to found.
Initially trained in painting, James abandoned the arts and enrolled in Harvard in 1861 to study chemistry and anatomy. During an extended stay in Germany after graduating, James developed an interest in studying the mind, as well as the body. In 1872 James was recruited by Harvard’s new, reformer president, Charles Eliot, to teach vertebrate physiology. In 1875 James taught one of the university’s first courses in psychology, “The Relations between Physiology and Psychology,” for which he established the first experimental psychology demonstration laboratory. James oversaw Harvard’s first doctorate in psychology, earned by G. Stanley Hall in 1878. Hall noted that James’s course was, “up to the present time the only course in the country where students can be made familiar with the methods and results of recent German researches in physiological psychology” (Hall, 1879).
James’s laboratory research on sensation and perception was conducted in the first half of his career. His belief in the connection between mind and body led him to develop what has become known as the James-Lange Theory of emotion, which posits that human experience of emotion arises from physiological changes in response to external events. Inspired by evolutionary theory, James’s theoretical perspective on psychology came to be known as functionalism, which sought causal relationships between internal states and external behaviors.
In 1890 James published a highly influential, two-volume synthesis and summary of psychology, Principles of Psychology. The books were widely read in North America and Europe, gaining attention and praise from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung in Vienna. James then moved away from experimental psychology to produce more philosophical works (he is credited as one of the founders of the school of American Pragmatism), although he continued to teach psychology until he retired from Harvard in 1907.
From https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/william-james.
For more information about William James:
“William James”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
“William James on the Psychology of the Second Wind”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/06/15/william-james-the-energies-of-men-second-wind/
“The Thinker Who Believed in Doing”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/winter/feature/the-thinker-who-believed-in-doing-0
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Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva (also Marina Cvetaeva and Marina Tsvetayeva) was born in Moscow. During her lifetime she wrote poems, verse plays, and prose pieces; she is considered one of the most renowned poets of 20th-century Russia. Tsvetaeva’s life coincided with turbulent years in Russian history. She married Sergei Efron in 1912; they had two daughters and later one son. Efron joined the White Army, and Tsvetaeva was separated from him during the Civil War. She had a brief love affair with Osip Mandelstam, and a longer relationship with Sofia Parnok. During the Moscow famine, Tsvetaeva was forced to place her daughters in a state orphanage, where the younger, Irina, died of hunger in 1919. In 1922 she emigrated with her family to Berlin, then to Prague, settling in Paris in 1925. In Paris, the family lived in poverty. Sergei Efron worked for the Soviet secret police, and Tsvetaeva was shunned by the Russian expatriate community of Paris. Through the years of privation and exile, poetry and contact with poets sustained Tsvetaeva. She corresponded with Rainer Maria Rilke and Boris Pasternak, and she dedicated work to Anna Akhmatova.
In 1939 Tsvetaeva returned to the Soviet Union. Efron was executed, and her surviving daughter was sent to a labor camp. When the German army invaded the USSR, Tsvetaeva was evacuated to Yelabuga with her son. She hanged herself on August 31, 1941.
Critics and translators of Tsvetaeva’s work often comment on the passion in her poems, their swift shifts and unusual syntax, and the influence of folk songs. She is also known for her portrayal of a woman’s experiences during the “terrible years” (as the period in Russian history was described by Aleksandr Blok). Collections of Tsvetaeva’s poetry translated into English include Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Elaine Feinstein (1971, 1994). She is the subject of several biographies as well as the collected memoirs No Love Without Poetry (2009), by her daughter Ariadna Efron (1912–1975).
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marina-tsvetaeva.
For more information about Marina Tsvetaeva:
“A kiss on the forehead”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55422/a-kiss-on-the-forehead
“Translator’s Notes: Eight Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/145547/translator39s-note-ldquoan-attempt-at-jealousyrdquo-by-marina-tsvetaeva
Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva: https://www.alicejamesbooks.org/bookstore/dark-elderberry-branch
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Franz Kafka, (born July 3, 1883, Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary—died June 3, 1924, Kierling, near Vienna, Austria), was a Czech writer who wrote in German. Born into a middle-class Jewish family, he earned a doctorate and then worked successfully but unhappily at a government insurance office from 1907 until he was forced by a case of tuberculosis to retire in 1922. The disease caused his death two years later. Hypersensitive and neurotic, he reluctantly published only a few works in his lifetime, including the symbolic story The Metamorphosis (1915), the allegorical fantasy In the Penal Colony (1919), and the story collection A Country Doctor (1919). His unfinished novels The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926), and Amerika (1927), published posthumously against Kafka’s wishes, express the anxieties and alienation of 20th-century humanity. His visionary tales, with their inscrutable mixture of the normal and the fantastic, have provoked a wealth of interpretations. Kafka’s posthumous reputation and influence have been enormous, and he is regarded as one of the great European writers of the 20th century.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Franz-Kafka.
For more information about Franz Kafka:
“Kafka, the Artist”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/kafka-the-artist/
“On Translating Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/on-translating-kafkas-the-metamorphosis
“Franz Kafka”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4LyzhkDNBM
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Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered “internal refugees” or “present-absent aliens.” Darwish lived for many years in exile in Beirut and Paris. He is the author of over 30 books of poetry and eight books of prose, and earned the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation, the Lenin Peace Prize, and the Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres Medal from France.
In the 1960s Darwish was imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. Considered a “resistance poet,” he was placed under house arrest when his poem “Identity Card” was turned into a protest song. After spending a year at a university of Moscow in 1970, Darwish worked at the newspaper Al-Ahram in Cairo. He subsequently lived in Beirut, where he edited the journal Palestinian Affairs from 1973 to 1982. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Al-Karmel. Darwish served from 1987 to 1993 on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1996 he was permitted to return from exile to visit friends and family in Israel and Palestine.
Mahmoud Darwish’s early work of the 1960s and 1970s reflects his unhappiness with the occupation of his native land. Carolyn Forché and Runir Akash noted in their introduction to Unfortunately It Was Paradise (2003) that “as much as [Darwish] is the voice of the Palestinian Diaspora, he is the voice of the fragmented soul.” Forché and Akash commented also on his 20th volume, Mural: “Assimilating centuries of Arabic poetic forms and applying the chisel of modern sensibility to the richly veined ore of its literary past, Darwish subjected his art to the impress of exile and to his own demand that the work remain true to itself, independent of its critical or public reception.” Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 in Houston, Texas.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mahmoud-darwish.
For more information about Mahmoud Darwish:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Fatima Bhutto about Darwish, at 19:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-116-fatima-bhutto
“Mahmoud Darwish”: https://poets.org/poet/mahmoud-darwish
In the Presence of Absence: https://archipelagobooks.org/book/in-the-presence-of-absence/
“Mahmoud Darwish”: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/mahmoud-darwish/
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G.K. Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, and theologian who lived and wrote at the turn of the 20th century. He was a prolific writer, producing fiction and nonfiction along with essays, poetry, and plays. Chesterton is best known for his creation of the priest-detective character Father Brown and for his book Orthodoxywhich has become a classic of Christian apologetics.
From https://us.macmillan.com/author/gkchesterton.
For more information about G. K. Chesterton:
“G. K. Chesterton”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/g-k-chesterton
“The Troubling Genius of G. K. Chesterton”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/07/07/the-back-of-the-world
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Flavius Philostratus, (born AD 170—died c.245) was a Greek writer of Roman imperial times who studied at Athens and some time after AD 202 entered the circle of the philosophical Syrian empress of Rome, Julia Domna. On her death he settled in Tyre.
Philostratus’s works include Gymnastikos, a treatise dealing with athletic training; Ērōïkos(“Hero”), a dialogue on the significance of various heroes of the Trojan War; Epistolai erōtikai(“Erotic Epistles”), one of which was the inspiration for the English poet Ben Jonson’s To Celia(“Drink to me only with thine eyes”); and two sets of descriptions (ekphraseis) of paintings of mythological scenes, attributed to two men named Philostratus, possibly the well-known figure and his grandson. Flavius Philostratus’s Bioi sophistōn (Lives of the Sophists) treats both the Sophists of the 5th century BC and the later philosophers and rhetoricians of the Second Sophistic, a name coined by Philostratus to describe the art of declamation in Greek as practiced in the Roman Empire from the time of Nero (AD 54–68) to Philostratus’s own day.
Philostratus’s work on the life of the Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana (1st century AD), which was commissioned by Julia Domna, is revealing of religious attitudes in a transitional period. His idealized portrait of Apollonius as an ascetic miracle worker was taken up with enthusiasm by the pagan elites of the next centuries—when Christianity had become of political significance—as a counter figure to the Christian Jesus. In Philostratus’s moderately Atticizing prose (i.e., aspiring to the Classical style of 5th-century-BC Athens and opposed to the florid and bombastic style of Greek associated especially with Asia Minor), formal elegance was a way to give new significance and validity to the traditional cultural heritage of the pagan Greek world.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Flavius-Philostratus.
For more information about Philostratus, the Athenian:
“The Life of Apollonius of Tyana”: https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL017/2005/volume.xml
“Life of Apollonius 8”: https://www.livius.org/sources/content/philostratus-life-of-apollonius/philostratus-life-of-apollonius-8.7.vi-x/
Lives of the Sophists: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674991491
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Fran Lebowitz is a writer and social commentator. Her essays and interviews offer her acerbic views on current events and the media – as well as pet peeves including tourists, baggage-claim areas, after-shave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. The New York Times Book Review calls Lebowitz an "important humorist in the classic tradition."
Her first book, a collection of essays titled Metropolitan Life, was a bestseller, as was a second collection, Social Studies. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Lebowitz’s prose is wickedly entertaining. Her two books are collected in The Fran Lebowitz Reader, with a new preface by the author. The Fran Lebowitz Reader has been published in nine languages including French, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. Lebowitz is also the author of the children’s book, Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas.
Between 2001 to 2007, Lebowitz had a recurring role as Judge Janice Goldberg on the television drama Law & Order. She also had a part in the Martin Scorsese-directed film, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). She can also be seen in various documentary films including the American Experienceseries on New York City, as well as Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2016), Regarding Susan Sontag (2014), and Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol(1990), among others. In 2010 Martin Scorsese directed a documentary about Lebowitz for HBO titled Public Speaking. A limited documentary series, Pretend It's a City, also directed by Martin Scorsese, premiered on Netflix in 2021, and was nominated for the 2021 Emmys in the Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Series category.
Lebowitz was named to Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 2008. She remains a style icon. Lebowitz lives in New York City, as she does not believe that she would be allowed to live anywhere else.
From https://franlebowitz.com/bio.
For more information about Fran Lebowitz:
The Fran Lebowitz Reader: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/99063/the-fran-lebowitz-reader-by-fran-lebowitz/
“Fran Lebowitz is Never Leaving New York”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/fran-lebowitz-is-never-leaving-new-york
“Fran Lebowitz: A Humorist at Work”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1931/a-humorist-at-work-fran-lebowitz
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Graham Greene, (born Oct. 2, 1904, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, Eng.—died April 3, 1991, Vevey, Switz.), British author. After studying at the University of Oxford, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1926. Beginning c. 1930 he worked principally as a freelance journalist for several decades, during which he traveled widely. Stamboul Train (1932; also titled Orient Express; film, 1934) was the first of his “entertainments,” thrillers with considerable moral complexity and depth; others included A Gun for Sale (1936; also titled This Gun for Hire; film, 1942), The Confidential Agent (1939; film, 1945), and The Third Man (1949; film, 1949). His finest novels—Brighton Rock (1938; film, 1948), The Power and the Glory (1940; film, 1962), The Heart of the Matter(1948; film, 1954), and The End of the Affair (1951; film, 1999)—all have distinctly religious themes. Several of his novels set in “third-world” nations on the brink of political upheaval were also adapted as films.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Graham-Greene.
For more information about Graham Greene:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Julian Sands about Greene, at 02:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-013-julian-sands
Meredith Monk about Greene, 06:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-meredith-monk-054
David Harrington about Greene, 09:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-david-harrington
The Power and the Glory: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/321542/the-power-and-the-glory-by-graham-greene-introduction-by-john-updike/
“Graham Greene, The Art of Fiction No. 3”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5180/the-art-of-fiction-no-3-graham-greene
“Where to start with Graham Greene’s Books”: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2019/10/where-to-start-reading-graham-greene
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Mae West, original name Mary Jane West, (born August 17, 1893, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died November 22, 1980, Los Angeles, California), was an American stage and film actress, a sex symbol whose frank sensuality, languid postures, and blasé wisecracking became her trademarks. She usually portrayed women who accepted their lives of dubious virtue with flippant good humor.
West made her debut with a Brooklyn stock company about 1901, and by 1907 she had become a performer on the national vaudeville circuit in partnership with Frank Wallace. She made her Broadway debut as a singer and acrobatic dancer in the revue A la Broadway in 1911. For the next 15 years she alternated between vaudeville and Broadway shows, and she did an occasional nightclub act.
In 1926 West began to write, produce, and star in her own plays on Broadway. In the first of these, Sex (1926), her performance as a prostitute created a sensation but also earned her an eight-day jail sentence for “corrupting the morals of youth,” from which she emerged a national figure. Her plays Diamond Lil (1928) and The Constant Sinner (1931) were also successful. For all the variety of the scripts she wrote, the constant factor was West’s own ironic, languorous personality and her ability to ridicule social attitudes, especially toward sex.
In 1932 West moved to Hollywood. Her first film there, Night After Night (1932), showed the lighthearted approach that was characteristic of her subsequent pictures. She Done Him Wrong (1933), a screen adaptation of Diamond Lil, is memorable for her amusing ability to charge such lines as “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” with suggestive implications. West then wrote and costarred in I’m No Angel (1933), Belle of the Nineties (1934), and Klondike Annie (1936), which brought her popularity to its height. In the 1940s and ’50s she sometimes appeared onstage surrounded by young musclemen, including on Broadway in Catherine Was Great(1944). Her films were revived in the 1960s, and she appeared in Myra Breckinridge(1970), an adaptation of a novel by Gore Vidal, and Sextette (1978), based on a play that she wrote.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mae-West.
For more information about Mae West:
“‘When I’m Bad, I’m Better’: Mae West’s Sensational Life, in Her Own Words”: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/06/mae-west-autobiography-scandal
“Mae West: Dirty Blonde”: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/mae-west-dirty-blonde-documentary/14998/
“Mae West Vamped and Winked. She Also Blazed a Trail We’re Still Following”: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/movies/mae-west.html
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Author, playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was a popular literary figure in late Victorian England. After graduating from Oxford University, he lectured as a poet, art critic and a leading proponent of the principles of aestheticism. In 1891, he published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel which was panned as immoral by Victorian critics, but is now considered one of his most notable works. As a dramatist, many of Wilde’s plays were well received including his satirical comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his most famous play. Unconventional in his writing and life, Wilde’s affair with a young man led to his arrest on charges of "gross indecency" in 1895. He was imprisoned for two years and died in poverty three years after his release at the age of 46.
From https://www.biography.com/writer/oscar-wilde
For more information about Oscar Wilde:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Anand Giridharadas on Wilde, at 23:03: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-063-anand-giridharadas
Lady Windermere’s Fan: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lady-windermeres-fan-oscar-wilde/1100533269
“Oscar Wilde”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/oscar-wilde
“How Oscar Wilde Won Over the American Press”: https://lithub.com/how-oscar-wilde-won-over-the-american-press/
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (born June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switz.—died July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France), was a Swiss-French philosopher. At age 16 he fled Geneva to Savoy, where he became the steward and later the lover of the baronne de Warens. At age 30, having furthered his education and social position under her influence, he moved to Paris, where he joined Denis Diderot at the center of the philosophes; he wrote on music and economics for Diderot’s Encyclopédie. His first major work, the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), argued that man is good by nature but has been corrupted by society and civilization; Rousseau’s belief in the natural goodness of man set him apart from Roman Catholic writers who, like him, were hostile to the idea of progress. He also wrote music; his light opera The Cunning-Man (1752) was widely admired. In 1752 he became involved in an influential dispute with Jean-Philippe Rameau over the relative merits of French and Italian music; Rousseau championed the latter. In the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1754), he argued against Thomas Hobbes that human life before the formation of societies was healthy, happy, and free and that vice arose as the result of social organization and especially the introduction of private property. Civil society, he held, comes into being only to ensure peace and to protect property, which not everyone has; it thus represents a fraudulent social contract that reinforces inequality. In the Social Contract (1762), which begins with the memorable line, “Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains,” Rousseau argues that a civil society based on a genuine social contract rather than a fraudulent one would provide people with a better kind of freedom in exchange for their natural independence, namely, political liberty, which he understands as obedience to a self-imposed law created by the “general will.” In 1762 the publication of Émile, a treatise on education, produced outrage, and Rousseau was forced to flee to Switzerland. He began showing signs of mental instability c. 1767, and he died insane. His Confessions (1781–88), which he modeled on the work of the same title by St. Augustine, is among the most famous autobiographies.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Jean-Jacques-Rousseau.
For more information about Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
“Jean-Jacques Rousseau”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/
“Jean-Jacques Rousseau”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81KfDXTTtXE
The Essential Writings of Rousseau: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/158207/the-essential-writings-of-rousseau-by-jean-jacques-rousseau-newly-translated-by-peter-constantine-edited-by-leo-damrosch/
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Naomi Shihab Nye is an award-winning writer and editor whose work has appeared widely. She edited the ALA Notable international poetry collection, This Same Sky, and The Tree Is Older Than You Are: Poems and Paintings from Mexico, as well as The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East. Her books of poems include Fuel, Red Suitcase, and Words Under the Words. A Guggenheim fellow, she is also the author of the young adult novel Habibi, which was named an ALA Notable Book, a Best Book for Young Adults, and winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award as well as the Book Publishers of Texas award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Naomi lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Michael, and their son, Madison.
From https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Naomi-Shihab-Nye/1339809.
For more information about Naomi Shihab Nye:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Naomi Shihab Nye on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
Edward Hirsch about Nye, at 18:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
“Naomi Shihab Nye”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/naomi-shihab-nye
“Naomi Shihab Nye, On Being”: https://onbeing.org/programs/naomi-shihab-nye-before-you-know-kindness-as-the-deepest-thing-inside/
“A Poet’s Humble Answers: Naomi Shihab Nye”: http://www.cerisepress.com/01/03/a-poets-humble-answers-naomi-shihab-nye/view-all
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Homer, (flourished 9th or 8th century BCE, Ionia?), was an ancient Greek poet and presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Though almost nothing is known of his life, tradition holds that Homer was blind. The ancient Greeks attributed to him the great epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. Modern scholars generally agree that he composed (but was not the original creator of) the Iliad, most likely relying on oral traditions, and at least inspired the composition of the Odyssey.
The Iliad, set during the Trojan War, tells the story of the wrath of Achilles. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus as he travels home from the war. The two epics provided the basis of Greek education and culture in the Classical age, and they have remained among the most significant poems of the European tradition. The method of their composition has been long debated.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Homer-Greek-poet.
For more information about Homer:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Homer, at 14:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
The Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/537250/the-iliad-by-homer-translated-by-robert-fagles-introduction-and-notes-by-bernard-knox/
“Englishing the Iliad: Grading Four Rival Translations”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/englishing-the-iliad-grading-four-rival-translations
“Robert Fagles, the Art of Translation No. 2”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/930/the-art-of-translation-no-2-robert-fagles
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Ralph Harper (1916–1996) was an adjunct professor of humanities at the Johns Hopkins University and a rector of St. James Church in Monkton, Maryland. He is the author of twelve books, including The Seventh Solitude, Human Love, The World of the Thriller, The Existential Experience, and Journey from Paradise, which were published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
From https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/9239/presence.
For more information about Ralph Harper:
On Presence: https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/9239/presence
The Maytrees: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-maytrees-annie-dillard?variant=32122324156450
“Ralph Harper, 80, Priest Who Explored Existentialist Themes”: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/25/us/ralph-harper-80-priest-who-explored-existentialist-themes.html
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Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón was a Spanish poet awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956. His many works include La soledad sonora (Revista de Archivos, 1911), Platero y yo (Ediciones de la Lectura, 1914), Diario de un poeta recién casado (Casa Editorial Calleja, 1917), Canción (Editorial Signo, 1935), and Animal de fondo(Editorial Pleamar, 1949). He died on May 29, 1958.
From https://poets.org/poet/juan-ramon-jimenez.
For more information about Juan Ramón Jiménez:
The Complete Perfectionists: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/C/bo12332280.html
“Juan Ramón Jiménez”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/juan-ramon-jimaenez
“Nobel Prize, Juan Ramón Jiménez”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1956/jimenez/biographical/
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Ocean Vuong is the author of The New York Times bestselling poetry collection, Time is a Mother (Penguin Press 2022), and The New York Timesbestselling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press 2019), which has been translated into 36 languages. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, his honors include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize.
Vuong's writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Granta, Harpers, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Village Voice, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as a 2016 100 Leading Global Thinker, Ocean was also named by BuzzFeed Books as one of “32 Essential Asian American Writers” and has been profiled on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” PBS NewsHour, Teen Vogue, Interview, Poets & Writers, and The New Yorker.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Hartford, Connecticut in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he was educated at nearby Manchester Community College before transferring to Pace University to study International Marketing. Without completing his first term, he dropped out of Business school and enrolled at Brooklyn College, where he graduated with a BA in Nineteenth Century American Literature. He subsequently received his MFA in Poetry from NYU.
He currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts where he serves as an Associate Professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at UMass-Amherst.
From https://www.oceanvuong.com/about.
For more information about Ocean Vuong:
Ocean Vuong on A Phone Call From Paul: https://a-phone-call-from-paul.simplecast.com/episodes/a-phone-call-from-paul-67-ocean-vuong
Night Sky with Exit Wounds: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/night-sky-with-exit-wounds-by-ocean-vuong/
“Torso of Air”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/26/magazine/ocean-vuong-torso-of-air.html
“Ocean Vuong is Still Learning”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/ocean-vuong-is-still-learning
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Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva (also Marina Cvetaeva and Marina Tsvetayeva) was born in Moscow. During her lifetime she wrote poems, verse plays, and prose pieces; she is considered one of the most renowned poets of 20th-century Russia. Tsvetaeva’s life coincided with turbulent years in Russian history. She married Sergei Efron in 1912; they had two daughters and later one son. Efron joined the White Army, and Tsvetaeva was separated from him during the Civil War. She had a brief love affair with Osip Mandelstam, and a longer relationship with Sofia Parnok. During the Moscow famine, Tsvetaeva was forced to place her daughters in a state orphanage, where the younger, Irina, died of hunger in 1919. In 1922 she emigrated with her family to Berlin, then to Prague, settling in Paris in 1925. In Paris, the family lived in poverty. Sergei Efron worked for the Soviet secret police, and Tsvetaeva was shunned by the Russian expatriate community of Paris. Through the years of privation and exile, poetry and contact with poets sustained Tsvetaeva. She corresponded with Rainer Maria Rilke and Boris Pasternak, and she dedicated work to Anna Akhmatova.
In 1939 Tsvetaeva returned to the Soviet Union. Efron was executed, and her surviving daughter was sent to a labor camp. When the German army invaded the USSR, Tsvetaeva was evacuated to Yelabuga with her son. She hanged herself on August 31, 1941.
Critics and translators of Tsvetaeva’s work often comment on the passion in her poems, their swift shifts and unusual syntax, and the influence of folk songs. She is also known for her portrayal of a woman’s experiences during the “terrible years” (as the period in Russian history was described by Aleksandr Blok). Collections of Tsvetaeva’s poetry translated into English include Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Elaine Feinstein (1971, 1994). She is the subject of several biographies as well as the collected memoirs No Love Without Poetry (2009), by her daughter Ariadna Efron (1912–1975).
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marina-tsvetaeva.
For more information about Marina Tsvetaeva:
“No One Has Taken Anything Away”: https://ruverses.com/marina-tsvetaeva/nothing-s-been-taken-away/9732/
Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781847770608
“Tsvetaeva: The Tragic Life”: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/02/13/tsvetaeva-the-tragic-life/
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Groucho was born Julius Henry Marx on Oct 2 1890 in New York. He was the third of the five surviving sons of Sam and Minnie Marx. He was the first of the brothers to start a stage career aged 15 in an act called The Leroy Trio. Other acts followed, but none of them was a great success. Twice the other members of the act disappeared overnight and left him penniless in places far away from home.
When his Brothers came on stage they finally had success with the musical comedy called I'll Say She Is. It was at one of the performances of this show that Groucho got his painted moustache. He arrived late at the theater and used greasepaint to create a moustache. He found this so much easier than a glued-on moustache that he insisted on using this technique from then on. I'll Say She Is is was followed by two more Broadway hits - The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. The latter of which has the character of Captain Spaulding which remained (with the song Hooray for Captain Spaulding) a trademark for Groucho for the rest of his life.
The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers were also the first movies (except for one unreleased) made by the Brothers and were filmed in New York. The remaining movies were made in Hollywood. In the later years of the Brothers movie career Groucho started working on radio. He hosted several programmes and was a guest on many shows. His biggest success was the comedy quiz show You Bet Your Life which started in 1947. The show later moved to television and was on the air until 1961.
Groucho also appeared in a few movies without his brothers. Always being a liberal, Groucho sometimes made critical remarks about politics and had friends who were regarded as communist by the US of the 1950s. This led to Groucho being investigated by the FBI.
When Marx Brothers became popular again in the late sixties/early seventies Groucho made a comeback with a show in Carnegie Hall in 1972. At the film festival in Cannes in 1972 he was made Commandeur des Arts et Lettres and in 1974 he received a special Academy Award for the achievements of the Marx Brothers. Groucho died on August 19th 1977 at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. His ashes are at Eden Memorial Park, San Fernando, California.
From https://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/groucho.htm.
For more information about Groucho Marx:
“Groucho Marx”: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/124006%7C63642/Groucho-Marx#overview
“Groucho Marx Collection”: https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAH.AC.0269
“From the Archives: Groucho Marx Dies”: https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/archives/la-me-groucho-marx-19770820-snap-story.html
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Sir Isaac Newton, (born Jan. 4, 1643, Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, Eng.—died March 31, 1727, London), was an English physicist and mathematician. The son of a yeoman, he was raised by his grandmother. He was educated at Cambridge University (1661–65), where he discovered the work of René Descartes. His experiments passing sunlight through a prism led to the discovery of the heterogeneous, corpuscular nature of white light and laid the foundation of physical optics. He built the first reflecting telescope in 1668 and became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge in 1669. He worked out the fundamentals of calculus, though this work went unpublished for more than 30 years. His most famous publication, Principia Mathematica (1687), grew out of correspondence with Edmond Halley. Describing his works on the laws of motion (see Newton’s laws of motion), orbital dynamics, tidal theory, and the theory of universal gravitation, it is regarded as the seminal work of modern science. He was elected president of the Royal Society of London in 1703 and became the first scientist ever to be knighted in 1705. During his career he engaged in heated arguments with several of his colleagues, including Robert Hooke (over authorship of the inverse square relation of gravitation) and G.W. Leibniz (over the authorship of calculus). The battle with Leibniz dominated the last 25 years of his life; it is now well established that Newton developed calculus first, but that Leibniz was the first to publish on the subject. Newton is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Isaac-Newton.
For more information about Isaac Newton:
“Isaac Newton”: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/isaac-newton-who-he-was-why-apples-are-falling
“The Truth About Isaac Newton’s Productive Plague”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-truth-about-isaac-newtons-productive-plague
“Isaac Newton”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton/
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Homer, (flourished 9th or 8th century BCE, Ionia?), was an ancient Greek poet and presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Though almost nothing is known of his life, tradition holds that Homer was blind. The ancient Greeks attributed to him the great epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. Modern scholars generally agree that he composed (but was not the original creator of) the Iliad, most likely relying on oral traditions, and at least inspired the composition of the Odyssey.
The Iliad, set during the Trojan War, tells the story of the wrath of Achilles. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus as he travels home from the war. The two epics provided the basis of Greek education and culture in the Classical age, and they have remained among the most significant poems of the European tradition. The method of their composition has been long debated.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Homer-Greek-poet.
For more information about Homer:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Homer, at 14:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
The Odyssey, Emily Wilson: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393089059
“The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey’ Into English”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/magazine/the-first-woman-to-translate-the-odyssey-into-english.html
“Homer”: https://poets.org/poet/homer
Poet, novelist, essayist Adam Zagajewski was born in Lwów on June 21, 1945. He spent his childhood in Silesia and then in Cracow, where he graduated from Jagiellonian University.
Zagajewski first became well known as one of the leading poets of the Generation of '68' or the Polish New Wave (Nowa fala) and is one of Poland's most famous contemporary poets. His books of poetry in English include Asymmetry: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), Eternal Enemies: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), Without End: New and Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), and Mysticism for Beginners (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), all translated by Clare Cavanagh.
He is also the author of a memoir, Another Beauty (2000, translated by Clare Cavanagh) and the prose collections, Two Cities(1995, translated by Lillian Vallee) and Solitude and Solidarity (1990, translated by Lillian Vallee). His poems and essays have been translated into many languages. Among his honors and awards are a fellowship from the Berliner Kunstlerprogramm, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize, a Prix de la Liberté, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Since 1988, he has served as Visiting Associate Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. In 2010, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He served as co-editor of Zeszyty literackie (Literary Review), which is published in Paris. Zagajewski lived in Paris and Houston, Texas until his death on March 21, 2021.
From https://poets.org/poet/adam-zagajewski.
For more information about Adam Zagajewski:
“Don’t Allow the Lucid Moment to Dissolve”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57090/dont-allow-the-lucid-moment-to-dissolve
“Adam Zagajewski”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/adam-zagajewski
“Slight Exaggeration: An Interview with Adam Zagajewski”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/slight-exaggeration-an-interview-with-adam-zagajewski/
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Salman Rushdie is the author of fourteen novels—including Luka and the Fire of Life; Grimus; Midnight’s Children (for which he won the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker); Shame; The Satanic Verses; Haroun and the Sea of Stories; The Moor’s Last Sigh; The Ground Beneath Her Feet; Fury; Shalimar the Clown; The Enchantress of Florence; Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights; The Golden House; and Quichotte—and one collection of short stories: East, West. He has also published four works of non-fiction—Joseph Anton, The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands, and Step Across This Line—and coedited two anthologies, Mirrorwork and Best American Short Stories 2008. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature.
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/26491/salman-rushdie.
For more information about Salman Rushdie:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Salman Rushdie on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-168-salman-rushdie
Ayad Akhtar about Rushdie, at 24:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-156-ayad-akhtar
“Salman Rushdie on the wonders of paradox”: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/salman-rushdie-on-the-wonders-of-paradox-5sfd5jdfc29
Languages of Truth: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/616882/languages-of-truth-by-salman-rushdie/
“Salman Rushdie, the Art of Fiction No. 186”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5531/the-art-of-fiction-no-186-salman-rushdie
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Ingmar Bergman, (born July 14, 1918, Uppsala, Swed.—died July 30, 2007, Fårö, Swed.), was a Swedish film writer-director. The rebellious son of a Lutheran pastor, he worked in the theatre before directing his first film, Crisis (1945). He won international acclaim for his films The Seventh Seal (1957) and Wild Strawberries (1957). He assembled a group of actors, including Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, and a cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, with whom he made powerful films often marked by bleak depictions of human loneliness, including Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Cries and Whispers (1972), Autumn Sonata (1978), and Fanny and Alexander (1982). Bergman later wrote screenplays for The Best Intentions (1992) and Private Confessions (1996). He directed a number of television movies, most notably Saraband (2003), which received a theatrical release. Throughout his career Bergman continued to direct stage productions, usually at Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Ingmar-Bergman.
For more information about Ingmar Bergman:
“Ingmar Bergman”: https://www.ingmarbergman.se/en/ingmar-bergman-filmmaker
“Ingmar Bergman: 10 Essential Films”: https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/ingmar-bergman-10-essential-films
“Ingmar Bergman, Master Filmmaker, Dies at 89”: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/movies/30cnd-bergman.html
Cecília Meireles, (born November 7, 1901, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—died November 9, 1964, Rio de Janeiro), poet, teacher, and journalist, whose lyrical and highly personal poetry, often simple in form yet containing complex symbolism and imagery, earned her an important position in 20th-century Brazilian literature. Orphaned at an early age and brought up by her grandmother, Meireles began to write poetry at the age of nine. She became a public school teacher at 16 and two years later established her literary reputation with the publication of Espectros (1919; “Ghosts”), a collection of sonnets in the Symbolist tradition.
The 1920s were a time of revolution in Brazilian literature, but Meireles’s work of the period showed little affinity with the prevailing nationalistic tendencies or the radical technical innovations in free verse and colloquial language. Her poetry is considered by most critics to have found its best expression in such traditional forms as the sonnet. Between 1925 and 1939 Meireles concentrated on her career as a teacher, writing several books for children and in 1934 founding the Biblioteca Infantil in Rio de Janeiro, the first children’s library in Brazil. That year she lectured on Brazilian literature in Portugal at the universities of Lisbon and Coimbra; in 1936 she was appointed lecturer at the new Federal University in Rio de Janeiro.
Meireles reestablished her reputation as a poet after 14 years of silence with Viagem(1939; “Journey”), considered by many critics to mark her attainment of poetic maturity and individuality. From that time she devoted herself to her literary career, continuing to publish collections of poetry regularly until her death. Much of her work is collected in Obra poética (1958; “Poetic Work”), and several of her poems have been translated into English for anthologies.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cecilia-Meireles.
For more information about Cecília Meireles:
“Serenata”:
Permita que eu feche os meus olhos,
pois é muito longe e tão tarde!
Pensei que era apenas demora,
e cantando pus-me a esperar-te.
Permita que agora emudeça:
que me conforme em ser sozinha.
Há uma doce luz no silencio, e a dor é de origem divina.
Permita que eu volte o meu rosto para um céu maior que este mundo,
e aprenda a ser dócil no sonho como as estrelas no seu rumo.
“Contrary Moon: three poems by Cecília Meireles”: https://www.vianegativa.us/2015/06/contrary-moon-three-poems-by-cecilia-meireles/
“Cecília Meireles”: http://www.antoniomiranda.com.br/poesia_ingles/cecilia_meireles.html
Arthur Schopenhauer, (born Feb. 22, 1788, Danzig, Prussia—died Sept. 21, 1860, Frankfurt am Main), German philosopher. His father was a banker and his mother a novelist. He studied in several fields before earning his doctorate in philosophy. He regarded the Upanishads, together with the works of Plato and Immanuel Kant, as the foundation of his philosophical system, a metaphysical doctrine of the will developed in reaction to the idealism of G.W.F. Hegel. His magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation (1819), consists of two comprehensive series of reflections on the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of nature, aesthetics, and ethics. By turning away from spirit and reason to the powers of intuition, creativity, and the irrational, he influenced (partly via Friedrich Nietzsche) the ideas and methods of vitalism, life philosophy, existentialism, and anthropology. His other works include On the Will in Nature (1836), The Two Main Problems of Ethics(1841), and Parerga and Paralipomena (1851). An unhappy and solitary man, his works earned him the sobriquet “the philosopher of pessimism.”
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Arthur-Schopenhauer.
For more information about Arthur Schopenhauer:
“Arthur Schopenhauer”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/
Essays and Aphorisms: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/261121/essays-and-aphorisms-by-arthur-schopenhauer-translated-with-an-introduction-by-r-j-hollingdale/
“PHILOSOPHY - Schopenhauer”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0zmfNx7OM4
Jim Harrison was born in 1937, in Grayling, Michigan. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, and The New York Times.
Harrison was also the author of over thirty books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including seven volumes of novellas, Legends of the Fall (1979), The Woman Lit by Fireflies (1990), Julip (1994), The Beast God Forgot to Invent (2000), The Summer He Didn’t Die (2005), The Farmer’s Daughter (2010), and The River Swimmer (2013); eleven novels, Wolf (1971), A Good Day to Die (1973), Farmer (1976), Warlock(1981), Sundog (1984), Dalva (1988), The Road Home (1998), True North (2004), Returning to Earth (2007), The English Major (2008), and The Great Leader (2011); thirteen collections of poetry, including most recently Songs of Unreason (2011), In Search of Small Gods(2009), and Saving Daylight (2006); and three works of nonfiction, the memoir Off to the Side (2001) and the collections Just Before Dark(1991) and The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand (2001).
The winner of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Letters (2007) and was named Officier des Arts et Lettres (2012) by the French Ministry of Culture for his “significant contribution to the enrichment of the French cultural inheritance.” He has had his work published in twenty-seven languages.
Harrison lived in Montana and Arizona before his death in 2016 at the age of seventy-eight.
From https://groveatlantic.com/author/jim-harrison/.
For more information about Jim Harrison:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
James McBride about Harrison, at 24:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-092-james-mcbride
Saving Daylight: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/saving-daylight-by-jim-harrison/
“Jim Harrison, The Art of Fiction No. 104”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2511/the-art-of-fiction-no-104-jim-harrison
“Jim Harrison”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jim-harrison
C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born on April 29, 1863, in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s, and died on the same day in 1933. During his lifetime Cavafy was an obscure poet, living in relative seclusion and publishing little of his work. A short collection of his poetry was privately printed in the early 1900s and reprinted with new verse a few years later, but that was the extent of his published poetry. Instead, Cavafy chose to circulate his verse among friends.
Cavafy is the leading poet of the periphery, writing in Greek far from Greek lands. The body of his poetry includes the 154 poems of the “canon”; 37 “repudiated poems,” most of which are juvenilia written in romantic katharevousa; 75 “hidden” poems that were found finished in his papers; and 30 “unfinished” poems. His poems often feature historical figures or creations of the poet’s imagination, with frequent references to elements of Homeric, Hellenistic, and Byzantine years. Today, his poetry occupies a prominent place in both Greek and world literature.
You may read the complete C. P. Cavafy bio here https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/and discover the digital collection of the Cavafy Archive here https://cavafy.onassis.org/.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/c-p-cavafy and https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/.
For more information about C. P. Cavafy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy, at 11:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
The Collected Poems, translation by Evangelos Sachperoglou: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-collected-poems-9780199555956?cc=us⟨=en&
“Cavafy Archive”: https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/
“Man with a Past: Cavafy Revisited”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/23/man-with-a-past
On June 13, 1888, Fernando António Nogueira Pessôa was born in Lisbon, Portugal. When he was scarcely five years old, his father died. His mother remarried a year and a half later to the Portuguese consul in Durban, South Africa. Pessoa attended an English school in Durban, where he lived with his family until the age of seventeen. When he was thirteen he made a year-long visit to Portugal, returning there for good in 1905. He began studying at the University of Lisbon in 1906 but dropped out after only eight months. During the following years he stayed with relatives or in rented rooms, making his living by translating, writing in avant-garde reviews, and drafting business letters in English and French. He began publishing criticism in 1912, creative prose in 1913, and poetry in 1914. This was also the year when the alter egos he called heteronyms—Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos—came into existence. In 1915 he dropped the circumflex from his surname.
The majority of Pessoa's poems, heteronymic or otherwise, appeared in literary journals and magazines. He published his first book of English poems, Antinous in 1918, followed by Sonnets(1918) and English Poems (1921), but released only a single book of Portuguese poems, Mensagem, in 1933. He died November 30, 1935, in Lisbon from cirrhosis of the liver. Pessoa avoided the literary world and most social contact; it wasn't until years after his death that his work garnered a wide readership.
Literary alter egos were popular among early twentieth-century writers: Pound had Mauberley, Rilke had Malte Laurids Brigge, and Valéry had Monsieur Teste. But no one took their alter ego as far as Pessoa, who gave up his own life to confer quasi-real substance on the poets he designated at heteronyms, giving each a personal biography, psychology, politics, aesthetics, religion, and physique. Alberto Caeiro was an ingenuous, unlettered, unemployed man of the country. Ricardo Reis was a doctor and classicist who wrote Horace-like odes. Álvaro de Campos, a naval engineer, was a bisexual dandy who studied in Glasgow, traveled to the Orient, and lived outrageously in London. In an English text, Pessoa wrote, "Caeiro has one discipline: things must be felt as they are. Ricardo Reis has another kind of discipline: things must be felt, not only as they are, but also so as to fall in with a certain ideal of classic measure and rule. In Álvaro de Campos things must simply be felt." In later years, Pessoa also gave birth to Bernardo Soares, a "semiheteronym" who authored the sprawling fictional diary known as The Book of Disquietude; António Mora, a prolific philosopher and sociologist; the Baron of Teive, an essayist; Thomas Crosse, whose critical writings in English promoted Portuguese literature in general and Alberto Caeiro's work in particular; I. I. Crosse, Thomas's brother and collaborator; Coelho Pacheco, poet; Raphael Baldaya, astrologer; Maria José, a nineteen-year-old hunchback consumptive who wrote a desperate, unmailed love letter to a handsome metalworker who passed under her window on his way to work each day; and so on.
At least seventy-two names besides Fernando Pessoa were "responsible" for the thousands of texts that were actually written and the many more that he only planned. Although Pessoa also published some works pseudonymically, he distinguished this from the "heteronymic" project: "A pseudonymic work is, except for the name with which it is signed, the work of an author writing as himself; a heteronymic work is by an author writing outside his own personality: it is the work of a complete individuality made up by him, just as the utterances of some character in a drama would be."
From https://poets.org/poet/fernando-pessoa.
For more information about Fernando Pessoa:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Rabih Alameddine about Pessoa, at 12:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-081-rabih-alameddine
“Fernando Pessoa”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/fernando-pessoa
The Book of Disquiet: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/286380/the-book-of-disquiet-by-fernando-pessoa-edited-and-translated-by-richard-zenith/
“Fernando Pessoa & His Heteronyms”: https://poetrysociety.org/features/tributes/fernando-pessoa-his-heteronyms
George Lamming, in full George William Lamming, (born June 8, 1927, Carrington Village, near Bridgetown, Barbados), was a West Indian novelist and essayist who wrote about decolonization and reconstruction in Caribbean nations.
At Combermere High School, Lamming studied under Frank Collymore, editor of the Caribbean literary journal Bim, which published some of Lamming’s early work. Lamming left Barbados and worked as a teacher in Trinidad from 1946 to 1950 before settling in England. His highly acclaimed first novel, In the Castle of My Skin(1953), is an autobiographical bildungsroman set against the backdrop of burgeoning nationalism in the British colonies of the Caribbean in the 1930s and ’40s.
Lamming continued to study decolonization in his succeeding three novels: The Emigrants (1954), a despairing, fragmentary work about Caribbean immigrants in post-World War II England; Of Age and Innocence (1958), a microcosmic look at the problems of political independence; and Season of Adventure (1960), in which a West Indian woman discovers her African heritage. The Pleasures of Exile (1960) is a collection of essays that examines Caribbean politics, race, and culture in an international context. Lamming’s later novels included Water with Berries (1971), a political allegory based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Natives of My Person (1971), about 16th-century explorers in the West Indies. His poetry and short stories were published in various anthologies, and Conversations, a volume of essays and interviews, was published in 1992.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Lamming.
For more information about George Lamming:
“Remembering George Lamming’s spirit of generosity”: https://www.newframe.com/remembering-george-lammings-spirit-of-generosity/
The Pleasures of Exile: https://www.press.umich.edu//10236
“George Lamming”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/14/george-lamming-obituary
Anne Sexton was born Anne Gray Harvey in Newton, Massachusetts, on November 9, 1928. She attended boarding school at Rogers Hall Lowell, Massachusetts, where she first started writing poetry. She attended Garland Junior College for one year and married Alfred Muller Sexton II at age nineteen. Sexton and her husband spent time in San Francisco before moving back to Massachusetts for the birth of their first daughter, Linda Gray Sexton, in 1953.
After her second daughter was born in 1955, Sexton was encouraged by her doctor to pursue an interest in poetry that she had developed in high school. In the fall of 1957, she joined writing groups in Boston that introduced her to many writers such as Maxine Kumin, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath. She published her first two books, To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960) and All My Pretty Ones (1962), with Houghton Mifflin.
In 1965, Sexton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London. She then went on to win the 1967 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third collection, Live or Die(Houghton Mifflin, 1966). In total, Sexton published nine volumes of poetry during her lifetime, including Love Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 1969), The Book of Folly (Houghton Mifflin, 1973) and The Awful Rowing Toward God (Houghton Mifflin, 9175). She also authored several children's books with Maxine Kumin.
Sexton received several major literary prizes including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1967 Shelley Memorial Prize, the 1962 Levinson Prize, and the Frost Fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. She taught at Boston University and Colgate University, and died on October 4, 1974, in Weston, Massachusetts. Her papers are collected and housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
From https://poets.org/poet/anne-sexton.
For more information about Anne Sexton:
“Anne Sexton”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anne-sexton
“The Truth the Dead Know”: https://poets.org/poem/truth-dead-know
The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-complete-poems-anne-sexton/1111827107
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes's birth year was revised from 1902 to 1901 after new research from 2018 uncovered that he had been born a year earlier. His parents divorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry. After graduating from high school, he spent a year in Mexico followed by a year at Columbia University in New York City. During this time, he worked as an assistant cook, launderer, and busboy. He also travelled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, (Knopf, 1926) was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926 with an introduction by Harlem Renaissance arts patron Carl Van Vechten. Criticism of the book from the time varied, with some praising the arrival of a significant new voice in poetry, while others dismissed Hughes's debut collection. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter(Knopf, 1930), won the Harmon gold medal for literature.
Hughes, who claimed Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period such as Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including their love of music, laughter, and language itself alongside their suffering.
In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind (Simon & Schuster, 1950); Simple Stakes a Claim (Rinehart, 1957); Simple Takes a Wife (Simon & Schuster, 1953); and Simple's Uncle Sam (Hill and Wang, 1965). He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography, The Big Sea (Knopf, 1940), and cowrote the play Mule Bone (HarperCollins, 1991) with Zora Neale Hurston.
Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer on May 22, 1967, in New York City. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”
From https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes.
For more information about Langston Hughes:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o about Hughes, at 16:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-137-ngg-wa-thiongo
“Langston Hughes”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/langston-hughes
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/84092/the-collected-poems-of-langston-hughes-by-langston-hughes/
“The Elusive Langston Hughes”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/sojourner
“Langston Hughes: The People’s Poet”: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/langston-hughes-peoples-poet
Fannie Lou Hamer, née Townsend, (born October 6, 1917, Ruleville, Mississippi, U.S.—died March 14, 1977, Mound Bayou, Mississippi), African American civil rights activist who worked to desegregate the Mississippi Democratic Party.
The youngest of 20 children, Fannie Lou was working the fields with her sharecropper parents at the age of six. Amid poverty and racial exploitation, she received only a sixth-grade education. In 1942 she married Perry (“Pap”) Hamer. Her civil rights activism began in August 1962, when she answered a call by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for volunteers to challenge voter registration procedures that excluded African Americans. Fired for her attempt to register to vote (she failed a literacy test), she became a field secretary for the SNCC; she finally became a registered voter in 1963.
In 1964 Hamer cofounded and became vice-chairperson of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), established after unsuccessful attempts by African Americansto work with the all-white and pro-segregation Mississippi Democratic Party. That year she testified before the credentials committee of the Democratic National Convention, demanding that the delegation of the Mississippi Democratic Party be replaced by that of the MFDP. After U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to block the television broadcast of her testimony by scheduling a news conference for the same time, forcing television networks to cut away from their live coverage of the convention, her speech was carried on many evening news programs, where it was exposed to a much larger audience than it would have received had it been broadcast at its original time. In her testimony she movingly described incidents of violence and injustice suffered by civil rights activists, including her own experience of a jailhouse beating that left her crippled. At the insistence of President Johnson, however, the committee refused to seat the MFDP delegation, offering only two at-large seats, provided that neither went to Hamer. She and the MFDP refused.
In 1967 Hamer published To Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography. As a member of the Democratic National Committee for Mississippi (1968–71) and the Policy Council of the National Women’s Political Caucus (1971–77), she actively opposed the Vietnam War and worked to improve economic conditions in Mississippi.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fannie-Lou-Hamer-American-civil-rights-activist.
For more information about Fannie Lou Hamer:
“Fannie Lou Hamer”: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-hamer/
“I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired”: https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2019/08/09/im-sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired-dec-20-1964/
“The Enduring Influence of Fannie Lou Hamer, Civil Rights Advocate”: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/books/review/walk-with-me-kate-clifford-larson-until-i-am-free-keisha-blain-fannie-lou-hamer.html
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949. He grew up in Kobe and then moved to Tokyo, where he attended Waseda University. After college, Murakami opened a small jazz bar, which he and his wife ran for seven years. His first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won the Gunzou Literature Prize for budding writers in 1979. He followed this success with two sequels, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase, which all together form “The Trilogy of the Rat.”
Murakami is also the author of the novels Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; Norwegian Wood; Dance Dance Dance; South of the Border, West of the Sun; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; Sputnik Sweetheart; Kafka on the Shore; After Dark; 1Q84; and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. He has written three short story collections: The Elephant Vanishes; After the Quake; and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman; and an illustrated novella, The Strange Library.
Additionally, Murakami has written several works of nonfiction. After the Hanshin earthquake and the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995, he interviewed surviving victims, as well as members of the religious cult responsible. From these interviews, he published two nonfiction books in Japan, which were selectively combined to form Underground. He also wrote a series of personal essays on running, entitled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. The most recent of his many international literary honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul. Murakami’s work has been translated into more than fifty languages.
From https://www.harukimurakami.com/author.
For more information about Haruki Murakami:
Norwegian Wood: https://www.harukimurakami.com/book/norwegian-wood
“Haruki Murakami, The Art of Fiction No. 182”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2/the-art-of-fiction-no-182-haruki-murakami
“The Underground Worlds of Haruki Murakami”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-underground-worlds-of-haruki-murakami
Photo by Elena Seibert.
Praxilla was a Greek lyric poet who lived in the city of Sicyon in the fifth century B.C.E. She was famous for the composition of scolia—short poems typically sung after dinner—with erotic overtones, featuring gods, goddesses, and mythological heroes.
From https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/praxilla.
For more information about Praxilla:
Sappho's Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520073364/sapphos-lyre
"Selected Fragments of Praxilla": https://diotima-doctafemina.org/translations/greek/greek-women-poets/selected-fragments-of-praxilla/
The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctt1w8h2ct
Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585090.001.0001/acprof-9780199585090
The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome: https://www.worldcat.org/title/woman-and-the-lyre-women-writers-in-classical-greece-and-rome/oclc/954008490&referer=brief_results
"Praxilla’s Song": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b03AjRgRZx8
Carl Jung, in full Carl Gustav Jung, (born July 26, 1875, Kesswil, Switzerland—died June 6, 1961, Küsnacht), was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded analytic psychology, in some aspects a response to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of the extraverted and the introverted personality, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, literature, and related fields.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung.
For more information about Carl Jung:
“C.G. Jung”: https://press.princeton.edu/collected-works/collected-c-g-jung
“Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious”: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html
Thomas Mann, (born June 6, 1875, Lübeck, Ger.—died Aug. 12, 1955, near Zürich, Switz.), German novelist and essayist, considered the greatest German novelist of the 20th century. After a brief period of office work, Mann devoted himself to writing, as had his elder brother Heinrich (1871–1950). Buddenbrooks (1901), his first novel, was an elegy for old bourgeois virtues. In the novella Death in Venice (1912), a somber masterpiece, he took up the tragic dilemma of the artist in a collapsing society. Though ardently patriotic at the start of World War I, after 1919 he slowly revised his views of the authoritarian German state. His great novel The Magic Mountain (1924) clarified his growing espousal of Enlightenment principles as one strand of a complex and multifaceted whole. An outspoken opponent of Nazism, he fled to Switzerland on Adolf Hitler’s accession; he settled in the U.S. in 1938 but returned to Switzerland in 1952. His tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers (1933–43) concerns the biblical Joseph. Doctor Faustus (1947), his most directly political novel, analyzes the darker aspects of the German soul. The often hilarious Felix Krull, Confidence Man (1954) remained unfinished. He is noted for his finely wrought style enriched by humor, irony, and parody and for his subtle, many-layered narratives of vast intellectual scope. His essays examined such figures as Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, Anton Chekhov, and Friedrich Schiller. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Thomas-Mann.
For more information about Thomas Mann:
“Thomas Mann’s Brush with Darkness”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/thomas-manns-brush-with-darkness
“Thomas Mann”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1929/mann/biographical/
“Thomas Mann’s Civilized Uncertainty”: https://www.neh.gov/article/thomas-manns-civilized-uncertainty
Elizabeth Bishop was born on February 8, 1911, in Worcester, Massachusetts. When she was less than a year old, her father died, and shortly thereafter, her mother was committed to an asylum. Bishop was first sent to live with her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia and later lived with paternal relatives in Worcester and South Boston. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1934.
Bishop was independently wealthy, and from 1935 to 1937 she spent time traveling to France, Spain, North Africa, Ireland, and Italy and then settled in Key West, Florida, for four years. Her poetry is filled with descriptions of her travels and the scenery that surrounded her, as with the Florida poems in her first book of verse, North & South (Houghton Mifflin), published in 1946.
She was influenced by the poet Marianne Moore, who was a close friend, mentor, and stabilizing force in her life. Unlike her contemporary and good friend Robert Lowell, who wrote in the Confessional style, Bishop’s poetry avoids explicit accounts of her personal life and focuses instead with great subtlety on her impressions of the physical world.
Her images are precise and true to life, and they reflect her own sharp wit and moral sense. She lived for many years in Brazil, communicating with friends and colleagues in America only by letter. She published sparingly, and her work is often praised for its technical brilliance and formal variety. She received the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for her collection Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1955). Her Complete Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969), won the National Book Award in 1970. That same year, Bishop began teaching at Harvard University, where she worked for seven years. For years she was considered a “poet’s poet,” but with the 1977 publication of her last book, Geography III (Chatto and Windus), Bishop was finally established as a major force in contemporary literature. Elizabeth Bishop was awarded an Academy Fellowship in 1964 for distinguished poetic achievement, and served as a Chancellor from 1966 to 1979. She died in her apartment at Lewis Wharf in Boston on October 6, 1979.
From https://poets.org/poet/elizabeth-bishop.
For more information about Elizabeth Bishop:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Wayne Koestenbaum about Bishop, at 03:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-166-wayne-koestenbaum
“Elizabeth Bishop”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-bishop
Words in Air: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374531898/wordsinair
“Elizabeth Bishop on Why Everyone Should Experience at Least One Long Period of Solitude in Life”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/02/08/elizabeth-bishop-solitude/
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Hugh of Saint-Victor, also called Hugo of Saint-Victor, (born 1096—died Feb. 11, 1141, Paris, France), was an eminent scholastic theologian who began the tradition of mysticism that made the school of Saint-Victor, Paris, famous throughout the 12th century.
Of noble birth, Hugh joined the Augustinian canons at the monastery of Hamersleben, near Halberstadt (now in Germany). He went to Paris (c. 1115) with his uncle, Archdeacon Reinhard of Halberstadt, and settled at Saint-Victor Abbey. From 1133 until his death, the school of Saint-Victor flourished under Hugh’s guidance.
His mystical treatises were strongly influenced by Bishop St. Augustine of Hippo, whose practical teachings on contemplative life Hugh blended with the theoretical writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Hugh’s somewhat innovative style of exegesis made an important contribution to the development of natural theology: he based his arguments for God’s existence on external and internal experience and added a teleological proof originating from the facts of experience. His chief work on dogmatic theology was De sacramentis Christianae fidei (“The Sacraments of the Christian Faith”), which anticipated some of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Hugh upheld secular learning by promoting knowledge as an introduction to contemplative life: “Learn everything,” he said, “and you will see afterward that nothing is useless.” A prolific writer, Hugh wrote the Didascalicon, a remarkably comprehensive early encyclopedia, as well as commentaries on the Scriptures and on the Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius. The edition of Hugh’s work by the canons of Saint-Victor (1648) was reprinted in J.-P. Migne’s Patrologiae Cursus Completus (Series Latina), 1844–64.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hugh-of-Saint-Victor.
For more information about Hugo of St. Victor:
“The Didascalicon”: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-didascalicon-of-hugh-of-saint-victor-jerome-taylor/1130545158
“Hugh of St. Victor”: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/an-introduction-to-medieval-theology/hugh-of-st-victor/2AA438FA249415DD975D3E3A27E78383
Jenny Holzer was born in 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio. She received a BFA in printmaking and painting from Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, in 1972, and an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, in 1977. Holzer then moved to New York and enrolled in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. That same year, she created her first text-based works, initiating an ongoing artistic investigation of language in which she presents both original and appropriated texts to deconstruct how personal and political meaning are created in Western culture’s patriarchal, consumer-oriented society.
For Truisms, her series comprising terse one-liners written between 1977 and ’79, and Inflammatory Essays, which were composed between 1979 and ’82, Holzer anonymously pasted posters of unswerving, declarative statements around New York City. Since then her text-based work has evolved in numerous mediums. In the 1980s Holzer used electronic signs to present her work in such prominent public spaces as Times Square in New York and Piccadilly Circus in London, as well as in sport stadiums. She began producing engraved marble and granite benches, initially bearing text from Under the Rock (1986), and stone sarcophagi inscribed with Laments (1988–89), a moving reflection on the devastating repercussions of the AIDS crisis. For her 1989–90 retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Holzer created a site-specific LED sign that wound its way around the parapet of the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda, displaying aphorisms and declarations from all of her work to date. She represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and was awarded the Golden Lion for her Venice Installation, where she presented a series of her writings—including Mother and Child (1990), an account of motherhood—incised on a marble floor and emanating from LED signs.
Holzer has produced public memorials as well as outdoor nighttime projections, such as Arno (1996), presented on the surface of the Arno River in Florence. Her texts have also been projected on Rio de Janeiro’s cityscapes and oceans (Xenon for Rio de Janeiro, 1999), on beach shores and mountainsides (For San Diego, 2007), and on building facades across the world. Most recently, Holzer has returned to her earlier practice of using declassified American government documents as a subject for her art. Silkscreened on oil-painted backgrounds, these new works denounce acts of brutality and military practices conducted during the Iraq war.
Holzer has had solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Basel (1984); Brooklyn Museum, New York (1988); Dia Art Foundation, New York, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (both 1989–90); Haus der Kunst, Munich (1993); Art Tower Mito, Japan (1994); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (1997); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2001, 2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2004); MAK, Vienna (2006); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2008–09; travelled to the Whitney Museum of American Art [2009], and Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland [2009–10]); Tate Modern, London (2018–19); and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2019), among other institutions. Select group exhibitions include Eating Friends, Artists Space, New York (1981); Around 1984: A Look at Art in the Eighties, MoMA PS1 (2000); and Surprise, Surprise, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2006). Her works have appeared in Documenta (1982, 1987); Whitney Biennial (1983, 1985); Carnegie International (1985); Sculpture Project, Münster (1987); Venice Biennale (1990, 2005, 2007, 2015); Florence Biennial (1996); Singapore Biennial (2006); and Gwangju Biennial (2012). She has been the recipient of several important awards, and in 2016 she was made an Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. Holzer is one of the six artist-curators who made selections for Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2019–20). She lives and works in New York.
From https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/jenny-holzer.
For more information about Jenny Holzer:
“5 ways Jenny Holzer brought art to the streets”: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jenny-holzer-1307/5-ways-jenny-holzer-brought-art-streets
“Jenny Holzer”: https://projects.jennyholzer.com
“Jenny Holzer”: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/jenny-holzer
Samuel Beckett, (born April 13?, 1906, Foxrock, Co. Dublin, Ire.—died Dec. 22, 1989, Paris, France), was an Irish playwright. After studying in Ireland and traveling, he settled in Paris in 1937. During World War II he supported himself as a farmworker and joined the underground resistance. In the postwar years he wrote, in French, the narrative trilogy Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951), and The Unnamable (1953). His play Waiting for Godot (1952) was an immediate success in Paris and gained worldwide acclaim when he translated it into English. Marked by minimal plot and action, existentialist ideas, and humor, it typifies the Theatre of the Absurd. His later plays, also sparsely staged, abstract works that deal with the mystery and despair of human existence, include Endgame (1957), Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days (1961). In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Samuel-Beckett.
For more information about Samuel Beckett:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Helen Drutt English about Beckett, at 11:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-140-helen-drutt-graham
No’s Knife: https://www.amazon.com/Nos-Knife-Samuel-Beckett/dp/0714504173
“Samuel Beckett”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/samuel-beckett
“No’s Knife: much ado about nothing? Absolutely not”: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/no-s-knife-much-ado-about-nothing-absolutely-not-1.3100345
Marcus Aurelius , in full Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustusorig. Marcus Annius Verus, (born April 26, AD 121, Rome—died March 17, 180, Vindobona [Vienna] or Sirmium, Pannonia), was a Roman emperor (161–180). He was born into a wealthy and prominent family. Hadrian arranged that Marcus and Lucius Verus be adopted by the designated future emperor Antoninus Pius, who dutifully groomed Marcus as his heir. On his accession, Marcus nevertheless shared power with his adoptive brother as coemperor, though he himself remained the more dominant. His reign was marked by numerous military crises, all the major frontiers being threatened by invasion. Struggles against the Parthians (162–166) were successful, but returning troops brought a devastating plague to Rome. With a concurrent German invasion, Roman morale declined; the Germans were repulsed, but Verus died during the campaign (169). Marcus made his son Commodus coemperor in 177. Though a man of gentle character and wide learning, Marcus opposed Christianity and supported persecution of its adherents. His Meditations on Stoicism, considered one of the great books of all times, gives a full picture of his religious and moral values. His reign is often thought to mark the Golden Age of Rome.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Marcus-Aurelius-Roman-emperor.
For more information about Marcus Aurelius:
Meditations: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6367/meditations-by-marcus-aurelius/
“Marcus Aurelius”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/
“The Meditations”:
http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html
John Milton, (born Dec. 9, 1608, London, Eng.—died Nov. 8?, 1674, London?), was an English poet and pamphleteer. Milton attended the University of Cambridge (1625–32), where he wrote poems in Latin, Italian, and English; these include the companion poems “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” both written c. 1631. In 1632–39 he engaged in private study—writing the masque Comus (first performed 1634) and the elegy “Lycidas” (1638)—and toured Europe, spending most of his time in Italy. Concerned with the republican cause in England, he spent much of 1641–60 pamphleteering for civil and religious liberty and serving in Oliver Cromwell’s government. His best-known prose is in the pamphlets Areopagitica, on freedom of the press, and Of Education (both 1644). He also wrote tracts on divorce and against the monarchy and the Church of England. He lost his sight c. 1651 and thereafter dictated his works. After the Restoration he was arrested as a prominent defender of the Commonwealth but was soon released. Paradise Lost (1667, 1674), considered the greatest epic poem in English, uses blank verse and reworks Classical epic conventions to recount the Fall of Man; Milton’s characterization of Satan has been widely admired. Paradise Regained (1671) is a shorter epic in which Christ overcomes Satan the tempter, and Samson Agonistes (1671) is a dramatic poem in which the Old Testament figure conquers self-pity and despair to become God’s champion. History of Britain was incomplete when published in 1670, and an unfinished work on theology was discovered in 1823. Milton is generally considered the greatest English poet after William Shakespeare.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/John-Milton.
For more information about John Milton:
“John Milton”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-milton
Paradise Lost, Book 1: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45718/paradise-lost-book-1-1674-version
“The Enduring Relevance of John Milton”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/02/return-to-paradise
On March 27, 1926, Frank (Francis Russell) O’Hara was born in Maryland. He grew up in Massachusetts, and later studied piano at the New England Conservatory in Boston from 1941 to 1944. O’Hara then served in the South Pacific and Japan as a sonarman on the destroyer USS Nicholas during World War II.
Following the war, O’Hara studied at Harvard College, where he majored in music and worked on compositions and was deeply influenced by contemporary music, his first love, as well as visual art. He also wrote poetry at that time and read the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Boris Pasternak, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. While at Harvard, O’Hara met John Ashbery and soon began publishing poems in the Harvard Advocate. Despite his love for music, O’Hara changed his major and left Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English. He then attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and received his MA in 1951. That autumn, O’Hara moved into an apartment in New York. He was soon employed at the front desk of the Museum of Modern Art and continued to write seriously.
O’Hara’s early work was considered both provocative and provoking. In 1952, his first volume of poetry, A City Winter, and Other Poems, attracted favorable attention; his essays on painting and sculpture and his reviews for ArtNews were considered brilliant. O’Hara became one of the most distinguished members of the New York School of poets, which also included Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch. O’Hara’s association with painters Larry Rivers, Jackson Pollock, and Jasper Johns, also leaders of the New York School, became a source of inspiration for his highly original poetry. He attempted to produce with words the effects these artists had created on canvas. In certain instances, he collaborated with the painters to make “poem-paintings,” paintings with word texts.
O’Hara’s most original volumes of verse, Meditations in an Emergency (1956) and Lunch Poems (1964), are impromptu lyrics, a jumble of witty talk, journalistic parodies, and surrealist imagery. O’Hara continued working at the Museum of Modern Art throughout his life, curating exhibitions and writing introductions and catalogs for exhibits and tours. On July 25, 1966, while vacationing on Fire Island, Frank O’Hara was killed in a sand buggy accident. He was forty years old.
From https://poets.org/poet/frank-ohara.
For more information about Frank O’Hara:
“Frank O’Hara”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/frank-ohara
“To the Film Industry in Crisis”: https://poets.org/poem/film-industry-crisis
“The Ongoing Influence of Frank O’Hara, the Art World’s Favorite Poet”: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-ongoing-influence-frank-ohara-art-worlds-favorite-poet
Meditations in An Emergency: https://groveatlantic.com/book/meditations-in-an-emergency/
Alejandra Pizarnik was born in Buenos Aires to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. She studied philosophy and literature at the University of Buenos Aires before dropping out to pursue painting and her own poetry. In 1960, she moved to Paris, where she befriended writers such as Octavio Paz, Julio Cortázar, and Silvina Ocampo. Considered one of mid-century Argentina’s most powerful and intense lyric poets, Pizarnik counted among her influences Hölderlin and, as she wrote in “The Incarnate Word,” an essay from 1965, “the suffering of Baudelaire, the suicide of Nerval, the premature silence of Rimbaud, the mysterious and fleeting presence of Lautréamont,” and the “unparalleled intensity” of Artaud’s “physical and moral suffering.” Pizarnik’s themes were cruelty, childhood, estrangement, and death. According to Emily Cooke, Pizarnik “was perennially mistrustful of her medium, seeming sometimes more interested in silence than in language, and the poetic style she cultivated was terse and intentionally unbeautiful.” Her work has continually attracted new readers since her suicide at age 36.
Pizarnik published several books of poetry during her lifetime, including: La tierra más ajena (1955), La última inocencia (1956), Las aventuras perdidas(1958), Árbol de Diana (1960), Extracción de la piedra de locura (1968), and El infierno musical (1971). She also published the prose essay “La condesa sangrienta” (1971), a meditation on a 16th-century Hungarian countess allegedly responsible for the torture and murder of more than 600 girls. Pizarnik’s work has been translated into English in the collections Alejandra Pizarnik: Selected Poems (translated by Cecilia Rossi, 2010) and Extracting the Stone of Madness (translated by Yvette Siegert, 2016).
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alejandra-pizarnik.
For more information about Alejandra Pizarnik:
“Three Letters from Alejandra PIzarnik to Léon Ostrov”: https://www.musicandliterature.org/features/2015/6/28/three-letters-from-alejandra-pizarnik-to-len-ostrov
“Where the Voice of Alejandra Pizarnik Was Queen”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/07/25/where-the-voice-of-alejandra-pizarnik-was-queen/
“The Unstoppable Myth of Alejandra Pizarnik”: https://lithub.com/the-unstoppable-myth-of-alejandra-pizarnik/
Gabriel García Márquez, (born March 6, 1927, Aracataca, Colom.—died April 17, 2014, Mexico City, Mex.), Latin American writer. He worked many years as a journalist in Latin American and European cities and later also as a screenwriter and publicist, before settling in Mexico. His best-known work, the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), recounts the history of the fictional village of Macondo, the setting of much of his work; enormously admired and influential, it became the principal vehicle for the style known as magic realism. Later novels include The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), The General in His Labyrinth (1989), and Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004). His collections of short stories and novellas include No One Writes to the Colonel (1968) and Leaf Storm (1955). In 2002 he published Living to Tell the Tale, an autobiographical account of his early years. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez.
For more information about Gabriel García Márquez:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Jacqueline Novogratz about García Márquez, at 11:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-178-jacqueline-novogratz
“Gabriel García Márquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3196/the-art-of-fiction-no-69-gabriel-garcia-marquez
“The Power of Gabriel García Márquez”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/09/27/the-power-of-garcia-marquez
“Gabriel García Márquez, Conjurer of Literary Magic, Dies at 87”: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/books/gabriel-garcia-marquez-literary-pioneer-dies-at-87.html
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Daniel Dumile, best known by his stage name MF Doom, was a British-American rapper and record producer. Noted for his intricate wordplay, signature metal mask, and "supervillain" stage persona, Dumile became a major figure of underground hip hop and alternative hip hop in the 2000s.
Dumile created the MF Doom character as an alter ego with a backstory he could reference in his music. The character combines elements from the Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Doom, Destro, and the Phantom of the Opera.
Dumile, described as among the "most celebrated" musicians in hip hop, exerted a strong influence over his artistic peers, and in popular culture.
American president-elect Joe Biden included the instrumental to Dumile's popular 2004 song "Rapp Snitch Knishes" in his inauguration playlist; the decision was criticized by some, as Biden was part of the Obama administration which barred Dumile from returning to the United States.
For more information about MF DOOM:
"The Wondrous Rhymes of MF Doom": https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-wondrous-rhymes-of-mf-doom
"Doomsday": https://youtu.be/kHBHDWpK1yo
"MF DOOM and the Mask That Left Hip-Hop Forever Changed": https://www.theringer.com/2021/1/1/22209728/mf-doom-daniel-dumile-obituary
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Lula Carson Smith was born in 1917 in Columbus, Georgia. At age 15 she suffered a nearly fatal attack of rheumatic fever. The illness caused chronic health problems and ultimately influenced who she would become: It was during her long confinement with the illness that she gave up dreams of being a pianist and resolved to become a writer.
Upon graduating from Columbus High School in 1933, Carson—as she was called—plunged herself into reading, studying Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and other great Russian writers of pre-Revolutionary times. At the age of 17 she sold a valuable piece of family jewelry to move to New York from Savannah. Losing her money shortly after arriving in New York, she worked odd jobs to afford writing classes at Columbia. For the next three years she worked diligently at writing and became acquainted with New York’s literary community.
Recurring illness afflicted Carson, and when she became ill she would return to Columbus to recuperate. It was during one of these return trips that she met John Reeves McCullers, Jr., whom she married in 1937 at the age of 20. In their early years the couple moved to Charlotte and then to Fayetteville, North Carolina. The marriage was strained, but in these years Carson wrote two novels: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Reflections in a Golden Eye.
Carson’s relationship with John was marked by separations, reunions, a divorce and remarriage. Eventually, Carson moved to New York and supported herself with Guggenheim Fellowships and publication of her stories and essays in magazines. With the death of her father, Carson’s mother and sister came to live with her in Nyack, New York. The rest of Carson’s life was a mixture of literary success, personal unhappiness, and unrelenting bad health. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Member of the Wedding appeared in 1943 and 1946. She turned Member of the Wedding into a play which opened on Broadway in 1950 and won several awards. With age, Carson faced compounding health problems. After a final stroke and a long comatose period, she died in October 1967.
From https://www.georgiawomen.org/carson-mccullers.
For more information about Carson McCullers:
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/110964/the-heart-is-a-lonely-hunter-by-carson-mccullers/
"Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians": http://www.mccullerscenter.org
"Unhappy Endings": https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/12/03/unhappy-endings
"The Closeting of Carson McCullers": https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/02/03/the-closeting-of-carson-mccullers/
"Ship's Reporter Interview: Carson McCullers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5IAuT0w67E
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Isocrates, (born 436, Athens—died 338 BC, Athens), was an Athenian author, rhetorician, and teacher. His school, unlike Plato’s more philosophical Academy, provided an education for the practical needs of society; it was given over almost entirely to rhetoric. He promoted Greek political unity and cultural superiority based on monarchy and advocated a unified Greek attack on Persia under Philip II of Macedonia to secure unity and peace in Greece. When Greece lost its independence after the Battle of Chaeronea, Isocrates, in despair, starved himself to death.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isocrates.
For more information about Isocrates:
"Isocrates' 'Letter to Demonicus'": https://youtu.be/NuKjxVjnzN4
"Isocrates, To Demonicus": http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D1%3Asection%3D1
"Isocrates": http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0075:chapter=6
"Works by Isocrates": http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Isocrates.html
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Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871 in the Paris suburb of Auteuil. His father, Dr. Adrien Proust, was one of France's most distinguished scientists. His mother, Jeanne Weil, was a well-educated woman who loved the great classic writers of the 17th century, especially Molière and Racine. Marcel's only sibling, Robert, was born in 1873. The hypersensitive Marcel suffered all his life from a number of ailments, especially asthma. Although he earned university degrees in philosophy and law, he always knew that he wanted to be a writer.
In 1910, he had his bedroom lined with cork to block out the deafening noise of daytime Paris because he slept during the day and wrote through the night, after returning home from some of Paris's most exclusive salons. He was known as the city's most famous recluse, he even called himself an owl because he wrote while listening to his “nocturnal Muse.” Swann’s Way, the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, was published in November 1913 and was headed for a fourth printing when World War I broke out.
Proust continued to write, incorporating the unprecedented conflict into his story of contemporary French society. In 1919, Within a Budding Grove was published and won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize. The final three years of his life saw the publication of The Guermantes Way and Sodom and Gomorrah. The Captive, The Fugitive, and Time Regained were published posthumously. The novel's main themes are time and memory and the power of art to withstand the destructive forces of time.
From https://www.proust-ink.com/biography.
For more information about Marcel Proust:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sven Birkerts about Proust, at 18:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-181-sven-bikerts
Merve Emre about Proust, at 16:46: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-170-merve-emre
“On Reading Ruskin”: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300045031/reading-ruskin/
“Proust on Why We Read”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/10/20/proust-on-reading/
“What We Find When We Get Lost in Proust”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/what-we-find-when-we-get-lost-in-proust
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, (born Jan. 22, 1561, London, Eng.—died April 9, 1626, London) was a British statesman and philosopher, father of modern scientific method. He studied at Cambridge and at Gray’s Inn. A supporter of the Earl of Essex, Bacon turned against him when Essex was tried for treason. Under James I he rose steadily, becoming successively solicitor general (1607), attorney general (1613), and lord chancellor (1618). Convicted of accepting bribes from those being tried in his court, he was briefly imprisoned and permanently lost his public offices; he died deeply in debt. He attempted to put natural science on a firm empirical foundation in the Novum Organum (1620), which sets forth his scientific method. His elaborate classification of the sciences inspired the 18th-century French Encyclopedists, and his empiricism inspired 19th-century British philosophers of science. His other works include The Advancement of Learning (1605), History of Henry VII (1622), and several important legal and constitutional works.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Francis-Bacon-Viscount-Saint-Alban.
For more information about Francis Bacon:
“The Essays”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/260889/the-essays-by-francis-bacon/
“Francis Bacon”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/
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Anna Akhmatova, orig. Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, (born June 23, 1889, Bolshoy Fontan, near Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died March 5, 1966, Domodedovo, near Moscow) was a Russian poet. She won fame with her first poetry collections (1912, 1914). Soon after the Revolution of 1917, Soviet authorities condemned her work for what they perceived as its narrow preoccupation with love and God, and in 1923, after the execution of her former husband on conspiracy charges, she entered a long period of literary silence. After World War II she was again denounced and expelled from the Writers Union. Following Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, she was slowly rehabilitated. In her later years she became the influential center of a circle of younger Russian poets. Her longest work, Poem Without a Hero, is regarded as one of the great poems of the 20th century. Regarded today as one of the greatest of all Russian poets, she is also admired for her translations of other poets’ works and for her memoirs.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Anna-Akhmatova.
For more information about Anna Akhmatova:
“Anna Akhmatova”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anna-akhmatova
“You Will Hear Thunder”: https://allpoetry.com/you-will-hear-thunder
“The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova”: https://www.zephyrpress.org/product-page/the-complete-poems-of-anna-akhmatova-by-anna-akhmatova
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Bob Dylan was born on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in the city of Hibbing. As a teenager, he played in various bands and with time his interest in music deepened, with a particular passion for American folk music and blues. One of his idols was the folk singer Woody Guthrie. He was also influenced by the early authors of the Beat Generation, as well as by modernist poets. Dylan moved to New York City in 1961 and began to perform in clubs and cafés in Greenwich Village. He met the record producer John Hammond, with whom he signed a contract for his debut album, Bob Dylan (1962). In the following years, he recorded a number of albums which have had a tremendous impact on popular music: Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, Blonde On Blonde in 1966 and Blood On The Tracks in 1975. His productivity continued in the following decades, resulting in masterpieces like Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out of Mind (1997) and Modern Times (2006).
Dylan’s tours in 1965 and 1966 attracted a lot of attention. For a period, he was accompanied by film maker D. A. Pennebaker, who documented life around the stage in what would come to be the movie Dont Look Back (1967). Dylan has recorded a large number of albums revolving around topics such as: the social conditions of man, religion, politics and love. The lyrics have continuously been published in new editions starting in 1973, under the title WritingsandDrawings, subsequently changed to Lyrics. As an artist, he is strikingly versatile; he has been active as a painter, actor and scriptwriter. Besides his large production of albums, Dylan has published experimental work like the prose poetry collection Tarantula (1971). He has written an autobiography, Chronicles (2004), which depicts memories from the early years in New York and which provides glimpses of his life at the center of popular culture. Since the late 1980s, Bob Dylan has toured consistently, playing over 3000 concerts during the last 20 years. Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary culture is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of literary and musical analysis.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/biographical/.
For more information about Bob Dylan:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Steve Earle about Dylan, at 15:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-028-steve-earle
Rosanne Cash about Dylan, at 15:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/arts/music/bob-dylan-rough-and-rowdy-ways.html
“In Tusla, the new Bob Dylan Center reconsiders an icon and a city”: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2022-05-11/bob-dylan-center-museum-tulsa
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Bob Dylan was born on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in the city of Hibbing. As a teenager, he played in various bands and with time his interest in music deepened, with a particular passion for American folk music and blues. One of his idols was the folk singer Woody Guthrie. He was also influenced by the early authors of the Beat Generation, as well as by modernist poets. Dylan moved to New York City in 1961 and began to perform in clubs and cafés in Greenwich Village. He met the record producer John Hammond, with whom he signed a contract for his debut album, Bob Dylan (1962). In the following years, he recorded a number of albums which have had a tremendous impact on popular music: Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, Blonde On Blonde in 1966 and Blood On The Tracks in 1975. His productivity continued in the following decades, resulting in masterpieces like Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out of Mind (1997) and Modern Times (2006).
Dylan’s tours in 1965 and 1966 attracted a lot of attention. For a period, he was accompanied by film maker D. A. Pennebaker, who documented life around the stage in what would come to be the movie Dont Look Back (1967). Dylan has recorded a large number of albums revolving around topics such as: the social conditions of man, religion, politics and love. The lyrics have continuously been published in new editions starting in 1973, under the title WritingsandDrawings, subsequently changed to Lyrics. As an artist, he is strikingly versatile; he has been active as a painter, actor and scriptwriter. Besides his large production of albums, Dylan has published experimental work like the prose poetry collection Tarantula (1971). He has written an autobiography, Chronicles (2004), which depicts memories from the early years in New York and which provides glimpses of his life at the center of popular culture. Since the late 1980s, Bob Dylan has toured consistently, playing over 3000 concerts during the last 20 years. Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary culture is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of literary and musical analysis.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/biographical/.
For more information about Bob Dylan:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Steve Earle about Dylan, at 15:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-028-steve-earle
Rosanne Cash about Dylan, at 15:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CJHbfkROow
“Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/arts/music/bob-dylan-rough-and-rowdy-ways.html
“An Exclusive First Peek at the Bob Dylan Museum”: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylan-talks-a-raw-and-extensive-first-rolling-stone-interview-90618/
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On August 9, 1922, Philip Larkin was born in Coventry, England. He attended St. John's College, Oxford. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945 and, though not particularly strong on its own, is notable insofar as certain passages foreshadow the unique sensibility and maturity that characterizes his later work.
In 1946, Larkin discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy and became a great admirer of his poetry, learning from Hardy how to make the commonplace and often dreary details of his life the basis for extremely tough, unsparing, and memorable poems. With his second volume of poetry, The Less Deceived (1955), Larkin became the preeminent poet of his generation, and a leading voice of what came to be called "The Movement," a group of young English writers who rejected the prevailing fashion for neo-Romantic writing in the style of Yeats and Dylan Thomas. Like Hardy, Larkin focused on intense personal emotion but strictly avoided sentimentality or self-pity.
In 1964, he confirmed his reputation as a major poet with the publication of The Whitsun Weddings, and again in 1974 with High Windows: collections whose searing, often mocking, wit does not conceal the poet's dark vision and underlying obsession with universal themes of mortality, love, and human solitude. Deeply anti-social and a great lover and published critic of American jazz, Larkin never married and worked as a librarian in the provincial city of Hull, where he died on December 2, 1985.
From https://poets.org/poet/philip-larkin.
For more information about Philip Larkin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edward Hirsch about Larkin, at 25:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
Rosanne Cash about Larkin, at 15:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“Philip Larkin”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/philip-larkin
“The Complete Poems”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374533663
“These Be the Verses”: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/books/review/philip-larkins-complete-poems.html
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Archilochus, (flourished c. 650 BCE, Paros [Cyclades, Greece]), was a poet and soldier, the earliest Greek writer of iambic, elegiac, and personal lyric poetry whose works have survived to any considerable extent. The surviving fragments of his work show him to have been a metrical innovator of the highest ability.
Archilochus’s father was Telesicles, a wealthy Parian who founded a colony on the island of Thasos. Archilochus lived on both Paros and Thasos. Fragments of his poetry mention the solar eclipse of April 6, 648 BCE, and the wealth of the Lydian king Gyges (c. 680–645 BCE). The details of Archilochus’s life, in the ancient biographical tradition, are derived for the most part from his poems—an unreliable source because the events he described may have been fictitious or may have involved imaginary personae or ritual situations.
Modern discoveries, however, have supported the picture given in the poetry. Two inscriptions dedicated to Archilochus were discovered in a sacred area on Paros; they are named, after the men who dedicated them, the Mnesiepes inscription (3rd century BCE) and the Sosthenes inscription (1st century BCE). Archilochus’s self-presentation was taken seriously as early as the late 5th century BCE by the Athenian politician and intellectual Critias, who denounced him for presenting himself as the impoverished, quarrelsome, foul-mouthed, lascivious son of a slave woman. Some scholars feel that the Archilochus portrayed in his poems is too scurrilous to be real.
Archilochus probably served as a soldier. According to ancient tradition, he fought against Thracians on the mainland near Thasos and died when the Thasians were fighting against soldiers from the island of Naxos. In one famous poem, Archilochus tells, without embarrassment or regret, of throwing his shield away in battle. (“I saved my life. What do I care about my shield? The hell with it! I’ll buy another just as good.”) The motif of the abandoned shield appears again in the lyric poems of Alcaeus and Anacreon, in a parody by Aristophanes (Peace), and in a learned variation by the Latin poet Horace (Carmina).
Although the truth is difficult to discern with certainty from the poems and other evidence, Archilochus may have been disreputable. He was particularly famous in antiquity for his sharp satire and ferocious invective. It was said that a man named Lycambes betrothed his daughter Neobule to the poet and then later withdrew the plan. In a papyrus fragment published in 1974 (the “Cologne Epode”)—the longest surviving piece of Archilochus’s poetry—a man, who is apparently the poet himself, tells in alternately explicit and hinting language how he seduced the sister of Neobule after having crudely rejected Neobule herself. According to the ancient accounts, Lycambes and his daughters committed suicide, shamed by the poet’s fierce mocking.
Archilochus was the first known Greek poet to employ the elegiac couplet and various iambic and trochaic metres, ranging from dimeter to tetrameter, as well as epodes, lyric metres, and asinarteta (a mixture of different metres). He was a master of the Greek language, moving from Homeric formulas to the language of daily life in a few lines. He was the first European author to make personal experiences and feelings the main subject of his poems: the controlled use of the personal voice in his verse marks a distinct departure from other surviving Greek verse, which is typically more formulaic and heroic. For his technical accomplishments Archilochus was much admired by later poets, such as Horace, but there was also severe criticism, especially of a moralistic character, by writers such as the poet Pindar (5th century BCE).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Archilochus-Greek-author.
For more information about Archilochus:
“Archilochus”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0480%3Avolume%3D2%3Atext%3D21
“Archilochus: A poet and a mercenary?”:
https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/archilochus-poet-mercenary/
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Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, on June 7, 1917, and raised in Chicago. She was the author of more than twenty books of poetry, including Children Coming Home (The David Co., 1991); Blacks (The David Co., 1987); To Disembark (Third World Press, 1981); The Near-Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems (The David Co., 1986); Riot (Broadside Press, 1969); In the Mecca (Harper & Row, 1968); The Bean Eaters (Harper, 1960); Annie Allen (Harper, 1949), for which she received the Pulitzer Prize; and A Street in Bronzeville (Harper & Brothers, 1945).
She also wrote numerous other books including a novel, Maud Martha (Harper, 1953), and Report from Part One: An Autobiography (Broadside Press, 1972), and edited Jump Bad: A New Chicago Anthology (Broadside Press, 1971).
In 1968 she was named poet laureate for the state of Illinois. In 1985, she was the first black woman appointed as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, a post now known as Poet Laureate. She also received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the Frost Medal, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, the Shelley Memorial Award, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Guggenheim Foundation. She lived in Chicago until her death on December 3, 2000.
From: https://poets.org/poet/gwendolyn-brooks
For more information about Gwendolyn Brooks:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elizabeth Alexander about Brooks, at 29:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-062-elizabeth-alexander
“Old Mary”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=28111
“Gwendolyn Brooks”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gwendolyn-brooks
“Remembering the Great Poet Gwendolyn Brooks at 100”: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/29/530081834/remembering-the-great-poet-gwendolyn-brooks-at-100
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On June 13, 1888, Fernando António Nogueira Pessôa was born in Lisbon, Portugal. When he was scarcely five years old, his father died. His mother remarried a year and a half later to the Portuguese consul in Durban, South Africa. Pessoa attended an English school in Durban, where he lived with his family until the age of seventeen. When he was thirteen he made a year-long visit to Portugal, returning there for good in 1905. He began studying at the University of Lisbon in 1906 but dropped out after only eight months. During the following years he stayed with relatives or in rented rooms, making his living by translating, writing in avant-garde reviews, and drafting business letters in English and French. He began publishing criticism in 1912, creative prose in 1913, and poetry in 1914. This was also the year when the alter egos he called heteronyms—Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos—came into existence. In 1915 he dropped the circumflex from his surname.
The majority of Pessoa's poems, heteronymic or otherwise, appeared in literary journals and magazines. He published his first book of English poems, Antinous in 1918, followed by Sonnets (1918) and English Poems (1921), but released only a single book of Portuguese poems, Mensagem, in 1933. He died November 30, 1935, in Lisbon from cirrhosis of the liver. Pessoa avoided the literary world and most social contact; it wasn't until years after his death that his work garnered a wide readership.
Literary alter egos were popular among early twentieth-century writers: Pound had Mauberley, Rilke had Malte Laurids Brigge, and Valéry had Monsieur Teste. But no one took their alter ego as far as Pessoa, who gave up his own life to confer quasi-real substance on the poets he designated at heteronyms, giving each a personal biography, psychology, politics, aesthetics, religion, and physique. Alberto Caeiro was an ingenuous, unlettered, unemployed man of the country. Ricardo Reis was a doctor and classicist who wrote Horace-like odes. Álvaro de Campos, a naval engineer, was a bisexual dandy who studied in Glasgow, traveled to the Orient, and lived outrageously in London. In an English text, Pessoa wrote, "Caeiro has one discipline: things must be felt as they are. Ricardo Reis has another kind of discipline: things must be felt, not only as they are, but also so as to fall in with a certain ideal of classic measure and rule. In Álvaro de Campos things must simply be felt." In later years, Pessoa also gave birth to Bernardo Soares, a "semiheteronym" who authored the sprawling fictional diary known as The Book of Disquietude; António Mora, a prolific philosopher and sociologist; the Baron of Teive, an essayist; Thomas Crosse, whose critical writings in English promoted Portuguese literature in general and Alberto Caeiro's work in particular; I. I. Crosse, Thomas's brother and collaborator; Coelho Pacheco, poet; Raphael Baldaya, astrologer; Maria José, a nineteen-year-old hunchback consumptive who wrote a desperate, unmailed love letter to a handsome metalworker who passed under her window on his way to work each day; and so on.
At least seventy-two names besides Fernando Pessoa were "responsible" for the thousands of texts that were actually written and the many more that he only planned. Although Pessoa also published some works pseudonymically, he distinguished this from the "heteronymic" project: "A pseudonymic work is, except for the name with which it is signed, the work of an author writing as himself; a heteronymic work is by an author writing outside his own personality: it is the work of a complete individuality made up by him, just as the utterances of some character in a drama would be."
From https://poets.org/poet/fernando-pessoa.
For more information about Fernando Pessoa:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Rabih Alameddine about Pessoa, at 12:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-081-rabih-alameddine
“Fernando Pessoa”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/fernando-pessoa
“Fernando Pessoa’s Disappearing Act”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/fernando-pessoas-disappearing-act
The Book of Disquiet: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/286380/the-book-of-disquiet-by-fernando-pessoa-edited-and-translated-by-richard-zenith/
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Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation.
Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets such as Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and Henry James. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.
He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity and the theology of modern Protestant theologians. A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic. W. H. Auden served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973.
From https://poets.org/poet/w-h-auden.
For more information about W. H. Auden:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Garnette Cadogan about Auden, at 16:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-101-garnette-cadogan
Ruha Benjamin about Auden, at 13:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-129-ruha-benjamin
“W. H. Auden, The Art of Poetry No. 17”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3970/the-art-of-poetry-no-17-w-h-auden
“W. H. Auden”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden
“The Messy Genius of W. H. Auden”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/feature/the-messy-genius-w-h-auden
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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, (born July 1, 1742, Ober-Ramstadt, near Darmstadt, Hesse [Germany]—died Feb. 24, 1799, Göttingen, Hanover), was a German physicist, satirist, and writer of aphorisms, best known for his ridicule of metaphysical and romantic excesses. Lichtenberg was the 17th child of a Protestant pastor, who taught him mathematics and natural sciences. In 1763 he entered Göttingen University, where in 1770 he became assistant professor of physics and in 1775 professor. This post he held until his death. Lichtenberg did research in a wide variety of fields—including geophysics, volcanology, meteorology, chemistry, astronomy, and mathematics—but most important were his investigations into physics. Notably, he constructed a huge electrophorus and, in the course of experimentations, discovered in 1777 the basic principle of modern xerographic copying; the images that he reproduced are still called “Lichtenberg figures.”
As a satirist and humorist Lichtenberg takes high rank among the German writers of the 18th century. His biting wit involved him in many controversies with well-known contemporaries, such as Johann Kaspar Lavater, whose science of physiognomy he ridiculed, and Johann Heinrich Voss, whose views on Greek pronunciation called forth a powerful satire, Über die Pronunciation der Schöpse des alten Griechenlandes(1782; “On the Pronunciation of the Muttonheads of Old Greece”). In 1769 and again in 1774 he resided for some time in England, and his Briefe aus England (1776–78; “Letters from England”) are the most attractive of his writings. He contributed to the Göttinger Taschenkalender (“Göttingen Pocket Almanac”) from 1778 onward and to the Göttingisches Magazin der Literatur und Wissenschaft (“Göttingen Magazine of Literature and Science”), which he edited for three years (1780–82) with J.G.A. Forster. He also published in 1794–99 an Ausführliche Erklärung der Hogarthschen Kupferstiche (“Full Explanation of Hogarthian Copper Engravings”).
From 1765 until the end of his life, Lichtenberg kept notebooks he referred to as Sudelbücher, or “waste books,” where he recorded quotations, sketched, and made brief observations on a wide range of subjects from science to philosophy. First published posthumously in 1800–06, they became his best-known work and gave him his reputation as an aphorist. Selections from the Sudelbücher were published in English as The Waste Books (2000).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg.
For more information about Georg Christoph Lichtenberg:
The Waste Books: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/101375/the-waste-books-by-georg-christoph-lichtenberg-introduction-by-r-j-hollingdale/
“G. C. Lichtenberg: a ‘spy on humanity’”: https://newcriterion.com/issues/2002/5/g-c-lichtenberg-a-ldquospy-on-humanityrdquo
“Taking the pith”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jun/02/1
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Bertolt Brecht, orig. Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, (born Feb. 10, 1898, Augsburg, Ger.—died Aug. 14, 1956, East Berlin, E.Ger.), was a German playwright and poet. He studied medicine at Munich (1917–21) before writing his first plays, including Baal (1922). Other plays followed, including A Man’s a Man (1926), as well as a considerable body of poetry. With the composer Kurt Weill he wrote the satirical musicals The Threepenny Opera (1928; film, 1931), which gained him a wide audience, and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930). In these years he became a Marxist and developed his theory of epic theatre. With the rise of the Nazis he went into exile, first in Scandinavia (1933–41), then in the U.S., where he wrote his major essays and the plays Mother Courage and Her Children (1941), The Life of Galileo (1943), The Good Woman of Sichuan (1943), and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948). Harassed for his politics, in 1949 he returned to East Germany, where he established the Berliner Ensemble theatre troupe and staged his own plays, including The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1957). He outlined his theory of drama in A Little Organum for the Theatre (1949).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Bertolt-Brecht.
For more information about Bertolt Brecht:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
George Prochnik about Brecht, at 18:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-162-george-prochnik
Kwame Dawes about Brecht, at 14:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-037-kwame-dawes
“Bertolt Brecht”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/bertolt-brecht
“Singing About the Dark Times: The Poetry of Bertolt Brecht”: http://www.theliberal.co.uk/issue_9/poetry/hofmann_9.html
“Bertolt Brecht in Dark Times”: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/06/red-library-brecht
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Eric Idle was born on March 29th 1943 in Harton Hospital, South Shields, County Durham, U.K. His mother was a nurse and his father was a Sergeant in the RAF who was killed hitch-hiking home on compassionate leave and died in Darlington Hospital on Christmas Eve 1945. As a young child he lived in Manchester, attended his first school St. George’s, Wallasey (Liverpool) and in 1950 was sent to The Royal School Wolverhampton where his education was paid for by the RAF Benevolent Fund. Leaving school in 1962 with 10 O levels, 3 A Levels and 1 S Level he was accepted by Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read English Literature, in which he took his B.A. in 1965.
From 1964/5 he was President of The Footlights Dramatic Club (founded in 1883) and changed the rules to accept women members, the first of whom was Germaine Greer. After touring with her in the annual Footlights Revue My Girl Herbert (1965) which ran for a brief time at The Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, he spent a season in Leicester Rep before moving to London, appearing in two BBC TV Movies: Jonathan Millers Alice in Wonderland, and Ken Russell’s Isadora, and then starting to write professionally for BBC Radio’s I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again and BBC Television’s The Frost Report, which won The Golden Rose of Montreux.
In 1968 he began writing and acting in two series of a children’s TV hit, Do Not Adjust Your Set, with Michael Palin Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, which won The Priz Jeunnesse, Munich for Best Children’s Television. The success of this show led to four series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus for the BBC from July 1969 through 1973, with the addition of John Cleese and Graham Chapman. Also in that month he married actress Lyn Ashley, by whom he had a son Carey (b. 1973). The Pythons made several stage appearances, Monty Python’s First Farewell Tour, (UK and Canada, 1973) Monty Python Live at Drury Lane (1974) Monty Python Live at City Center (1976), and several movies, And Now For Something Completely Different (1971), Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975), The Life of Brian (1979), Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl (1982) and The Meaning of Life (1983).
After Python he created Radio Five the first comedy music show on BBC’s Radio One. He then wrote and starred in two Series of Rutland Weekend Television (with Neil Innes) which led to writing and co-directing The Rutles, in All You Need is Cash, for NBC, produced by Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels, a show which he hosted four times in the 1970’s. In 2001 he made a sequel called “Can’t Buy Me Lunch” which looked back on the Rutles and their influence on people’s lives. In 1975 he published Hello Sailor his first novel. His first play Pass The Butler was produced at The Globe Theatre, London 1983 where it ran for five months. In 1977 he met Tania Kosevich in New York, and married her there in 1981. They have one daughter, Lily (b. 1990.)
He has appeared in several films including Baron Munchausen, European Vacation, Yellowbeard, Nuns on the Run, Splitting Heirs, Casper, Wind in the Willows and has voiced Transformers, Shrek 3, South Park (the movie) and four episodes of The Simpsons. In 1986 he appeared as Koko in Jonathan Miller’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at The English National Opera, a role he repeated at The Houston Grand Opera in 1989. In 1994 he moved to Los Angeles, where he currently resides.
Publications include The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book (1976) a children’s audio book The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and The Pussycat (1996) and two novels Hello Sailor (1975) and The Road to Mars (1999.) In 1978 he began collaborating with composer John Du Prez, writing and recording songs for Monty Python, the signature tune for One Foot in the Grave and a musical Behind The Crease for BBC Radio Four (1990.) In 1991 his song Always Look on the Bright Side became a hit single in the UK.
His collaboration with John Du Prez led to two live stage tours of North America (2000 and 2003) and a book The Greedy Bastard Diary which details life on the road for three months, fifteen thousand miles in a rock and roll bus. Their musical Spamalot, directed by Mike Nichols, opened in Chicago in December 2004 and then Broadway on March 17th 2005 at The Shubert Theater, where it ran until January 2009, breaking all house records, garnering $175 million at The Box Office, winning three Tonys (including Best Musical 2005) a Grammy for Best Broadway Album and a Writers Desk Award for Best Lyrics. It subsequently toured North America for three years, opened in the West End of London for two years at The Palace Theater, and played The Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas (2007), Melbourne (2007), Barcelona (2008), Cologne (2008), Madrid (2009), Hungary(2009), Paris(2010), Sweden (2010), South Korea (2010) Holland and Belgium and Mexico City (2011.) Spamalot is currently touring both the UK and the US. A comic Oratorio Not The Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) based on Monty Python’s Life of Brian, written with John Du Prez “for Choir, Orchestra and Sheep”,premiered in Toronto (May 2006) conducted by his cousin Peter Oundjian. Subsequently it was lengthened and performed on tour in Australia and New Zealand, including two sell out nights at The Sydney Opera House, Wolf Trap (Washington), Houston and two nights at The Hollywood Bowl 2009 (with fireworks to the Galaxy Song) all conducted by John Du Prez. Idle appeared in all performances singing “Baritonish.” In October 2009 as part of the celebration of forty years of Monty Python it was performed and filmed at The Royal Albert Hall, London, with guest stars fellow Pythons Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam, plus Carol Cleveland and Neil Innes. It was released in HD DVD by Sony in 2010.
In 2009 at a special presentation in New York City Monty Python received a BAFTA lifetime achievement Award. He is apparently not yet dead, but his final words will probably be “Say No More.”
From https://ericidle.com/my-life/.
For more information about Eric Idle:
“Eric Idle - Always Look On The Bright Side of Life”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
“Always Look On The Bright Side of Life”: https://genius.com/Monty-python-always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life-lyrics
“Monty Python’s Eric Idle Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbchmshpsz0
“Eric Idle: A Monty Python Legend Looks Back”: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/eric-idle-monty-python-interview-autobiography-732335/
Photo by Eduardo Unda-Sanzana: https://www.flickr.com/photos/grimorio/14579015076/
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Antiphanes, (born c. 408–404 BC, Chios [Greek island near modern Turkey] or Rhodes [Greece] or Smyrna [now İzmir, Tur.]—died c. 334–330 BC, Chios), was a prolific and influential Greek writer of Middle Comedy, which succeeded Old Comedy (known from the 5th-century plays of Aristophanes).
Antiphanes, son of Demophanes (or of Stephanus), began producing comedies at Athens in the second half of the 380s BC. In the festival contests Antiphanes won 13 victories, of which 8 were awarded at the small Lenaea festival held in January and 5 at the more impressive Great Dionysia, held in late March. Although he died in Chios, he was buried in Athens, the site of his literary triumphs.
Ancient sources attribute to him variously 260 to 365 plays, none of which has survived. He was often quoted by later writers, who preserve more than 330 fragments from plays with 134 titles. An analysis of the fragments and titles shows that the themes of his plays included mythological farce (e.g., Minos and Cyclops), stories about hetairai, highly cultivated courtesans (e.g., Malthace and Melitta), everyday occupations (e.g., Kithara-Player and Doctor), family affairs (e.g., Sisters and Ancestors), and social relations (e.g., Resident Alien and Lover of Thebes). A long fragment of the comedy Poiesis is important for its exposition of the differences between comedy and tragedy. According to this passage, writers of comedy have the more difficult task, since they must invent names and plots for each play, while the tragic poet writes about well-known myths.
The Athenian scholar and politician Demetrius of Phaleron composed About Antiphanes, and Dorotheus of Ascalon, a grammarian of the early Roman Empire (1st century AD), also wrote about him. Athenaeus (late 2nd century AD), whose work is the source for many fragments of Antiphanes, praised him for his graceful style.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antiphanes.
For more information about Antiphanes:
Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0008,001:13
“A Line Between Careless and Pensive: More Ancient Words on Drinking”: https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/12/30/a-line-between-careless-and-pensive-more-ancient-words-on-drinking/
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On February 18, 1925, Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was educated in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, where he later participated in Jack Spicer's famous "Poetry as Magic" Workshop at San Francisco State College in 1957.
His first book, Views of Jeopardy (Yale University Press, 1962) won the Yale Younger Poets Series and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Soon after publishing his first book, Gilbert received a Guggenheim Fellowship and subsequently moved abroad, living in England, Denmark, and Greece. During that time, he also toured fifteen countries as a lecturer on American Literature for the U.S. State Department. Nearly twenty years after completing Views of Jeopardy, he published his second book, Monolithos, which won the Stanley Kunitz Prize and the American Poetry Review Prize. The collection takes its title from Greek, meaning "single stone," and refers to the landscape where he lived on the island of Santorini.
Gilbert is also the author of Collected Poems (Knopf, 2012); The Dance Most of All(2009); Transgressions: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2006); Refusing Heaven(2005); winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992 (1996).
His other awards and honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Gilbert was the 1999-2000 Grace Hazard Conkling writer-in-residence at Smith College and a visiting professor and writer-in-residence at the University of Tennessee in 2004. Gilbert died on November 13, 2012 in Berkeley, California after a long battle with Alzheimer's. He was 87.
From https://poets.org/poet/jack-gilbert.
For more information about Jack Gilbert:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elizabeth Gilbert about Gilbert, at 10:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-155-elizabeth-gilbert
“Jack Gilbert, The Art of Poetry No. 91”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5583/the-art-of-poetry-no-91-jack-gilbert
“Jack Gilbert”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jack-gilbert
“The Danger of Wisdom”: https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=7505.html
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Vita Sackville-West, an English poet, novelist, journalist, diarist, member of the Bloomsbury Group, and muse of Virginia Woolf, was born Victoria Mary Sackville-West in Knole, Kent, England on March 9, 1892.
West was the author of seventeen novels and nine works of nonfiction, particularly books about gardening. By the time she was eighteen, she had written eight novels and five plays. She published her first poetry collection, Poems of West and East (John Lane Company), a volume of twenty-one poems, in October 1917. Her other works of poetry include her Collected Poems (Hogarth Press, 1933) and the pastoral epic The Land (William Heinemann Ltd., 1926), both of which separately won the Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature. She also translated a volume of Rainer Maria Rilke’s elegies into English.
In the 1940s, West was named Companion of Honor for her contributions to literature. West died at home at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, England on June 2, 1962.
From https://poets.org/poet/vita-sackville-west.
For more information about Vita Sackville-West:
Twelve Days: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/twelve-days-vita-sackville-west/1120454882
“The Fabulous Forgotten Life of Vita-Sackville West”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/03/31/the-fabulous-forgotten-life-of-vita-sackville-west/
“Who Was Vita Sackville-West?”: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/who-was-vita-sackville-west
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Corita Kent (1918–1986) was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. At age 18 she entered the religious order Immaculate Heart of Mary, eventually teaching in and then heading up the art department at Immaculate Heart College. Her work evolved from figurative and religious to incorporating advertising images and slogans, popular song lyrics, biblical verses, and literature. Throughout the ‘60s, her work became increasingly political, urging viewers to consider poverty, racism, and injustice. In 1968 she left the order and moved to Boston. After 1970, her work evolved into a sparser, introspective style, influenced by living in a new environment, a secular life, and her battles with cancer. She remained active in social causes until her death in 1986. At the time of her death, she had created almost 800 serigraph editions, thousands of watercolors, and innumerable public and private commissions.
From https://www.corita.org/about/corita.
For more information about Corita Kent:
“Ten Rules for Students, Teachers, and Life”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/08/10/10-rules-for-students-and-teachers-john-cage-corita-kent/
“Corita Kent, The Pop Art Nun”: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/apr/22/corita-kent-the-pop-art-nun
“A Nun Inspired by Warhol: The Forgotten Pop Art of Sister Corita Kent”: https://www.npr.org/2015/01/08/375856633/a-nun-inspired-by-warhol-the-forgotten-pop-art-of-sister-corita-kent
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Graham Greene, (born Oct. 2, 1904, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, Eng.—died April 3, 1991, Vevey, Switz.), British author. After studying at the University of Oxford, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1926. Beginning c. 1930 he worked principally as a freelance journalist for several decades, during which he traveled widely. Stamboul Train (1932; also titled Orient Express; film, 1934) was the first of his “entertainments,” thrillers with considerable moral complexity and depth; others included A Gun for Sale (1936; also titled This Gun for Hire; film, 1942), The Confidential Agent (1939; film, 1945), and The Third Man (1949; film, 1949). His finest novels—Brighton Rock (1938; film, 1948), The Power and the Glory (1940; film, 1962), The Heart of the Matter(1948; film, 1954), and The End of the Affair (1951; film, 1999)—all have distinctly religious themes. Several of his novels set in “third-world” nations on the brink of political upheaval were also adapted as films.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Graham-Greene.
For more information about Graham Greene:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Julian Sands about Greene, at 02:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-013-julian-sands
Meredith Monk about Greene, 06:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-meredith-monk-054
David Harrington about Greene, 09:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-david-harrington
“Graham Greene’s Dark Heart”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/22/graham-greenes-dark-heart
“Bomb and Books: On Graham Greene’s Life During World War II”: https://lithub.com/bombs-and-books-on-graham-greenes-life-during-world-war-ii/
“Graham Greene, The Art of Fiction No. 3”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5180/the-art-of-fiction-no-3-graham-greene
"The Man Within My Head": https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/85781/the-man-within-my-head-by-pico-iyer/
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Mark Twain, orig. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, (born Nov. 30, 1835, Florida, Mo., U.S.—died April 21, 1910, Redding, Conn.), was a U.S. humorist, writer, and lecturer. He grew up in Hannibal, Mo., on the Mississippi River and was apprenticed in 1848 to a local printer. He received a riverboat pilot’s license in 1859 and later moved on to Nevada and California. In 1863 he took his pseudonym, the riverman’s term for water 2 fathoms (12 ft [3.7 m]) deep. In a California mining camp he heard the story that he first published in 1865 and made famous as the title story of his first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches (1867). He traveled widely, using his travels as subject matter for lectures and books, from the humorous narratives The Innocents Abroad (1869) and Roughing It (1872) to Life on the Mississippi (1883), his reflections on being a riverboat captain. He won a worldwide audience for his adventure stories of boyhood, especially Tom Sawyer(1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1885), one of the masterpieces of American fiction. The satirical A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and increasingly grim works including Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) and The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899) followed. In the 1890s financial speculations bankrupted him. His eldest daughter died in 1896, his wife in 1904, and another daughter in 1909. He expressed his pessimism about human character in such late works as the posthumously published Letters from the Earth (1962).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Mark-Twain.
For more information about Mark Twain:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Andy Borowitz about Twain, at 19:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-152-andy-borowitz
Margaret Atwood about Twain, at 20:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-055-margaret-atwood
“The Mark Twain Papers”: https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/mark-twain-papers
“Mark Twain”: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/mark-twain/
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Friedrich Hölderlin, (born March 20, 1770, Lauffen am Neckar, Württemberg—died June 7, 1843, Tübingen), was a German poet. He qualified for ordination but found himself more drawn to Greek mythology than to Christian dogma. In 1793 he was befriended by Friedrich Schiller, who helped him publish his early poetry. He produced works of passionate, expressive intensity, including his only novel, Hyperion (1797–99), the unfinished tragedy The Death of Empedocles, and a number of odes, elegies, and verse translations. In these works he naturalized the forms of Classical Greek verse in German and lamented the loss of an idealized Classical Greek world. His behavior became erratic, and in 1805 he succumbed irretrievably to schizophrenia; he spent his last 36 years in a carpenter’s house under the shadow of insanity. Little recognized in his lifetime, he was forgotten until the 20th century, when he came to be ranked among the finest of German lyric poets.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Friedrich-Holderlin.
For more information about Friedrich Hölderlin:
Hyperion: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/234465/hyperion-by-friedrich-holderlin/
“Friedrich Hölderlin”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/friedrich-holderlin
“The Riddle of Hölderlin”: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1970/11/19/the-riddle-of-holderlin/
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Marcus Aurelius , in full Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustusorig. Marcus Annius Verus, (born April 26, AD 121, Rome—died March 17, 180, Vindobona [Vienna] or Sirmium, Pannonia), was a Roman emperor (161–180). He was born into a wealthy and prominent family. Hadrian arranged that Marcus and Lucius Verus be adopted by the designated future emperor Antoninus Pius, who dutifully groomed Marcus as his heir. On his accession, Marcus nevertheless shared power with his adoptive brother as coemperor, though he himself remained the more dominant. His reign was marked by numerous military crises, all the major frontiers being threatened by invasion. Struggles against the Parthians (162–166) were successful, but returning troops brought a devastating plague to Rome. With a concurrent German invasion, Roman morale declined; the Germans were repulsed, but Verus died during the campaign (169). Marcus made his son Commodus coemperor in 177. Though a man of gentle character and wide learning, Marcus opposed Christianity and supported persecution of its adherents. His Meditations on Stoicism, considered one of the great books of all times, gives a full picture of his religious and moral values. His reign is often thought to mark the Golden Age of Rome.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Marcus-Aurelius-Roman-emperor.
For more information about Marcus Aurelius:
Meditations: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6367/meditations-by-marcus-aurelius/
“Marcus Aurelius”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/
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Thomas McGuane, in full Thomas Francis McGuane III, (born December 11, 1939, Wyandotte, Michigan, U.S.), is an American author noted for his picaresque novels of violent action set amid rural landscapes.
McGuane attended the University of Michigan, Olivet (Michigan) College, Michigan State University (B.A., 1962), Yale University (M.F.A., 1965), and Stanford University. McGuane’s first three novels—The Sporting Club (1969), The Bushwhacked Piano (1971), and Ninety-two in the Shade (1973)—present the central plot and theme of his early fiction: a man, usually from a secure family, exiles himself from American society (which he despises for its materialism and triviality), removes himself to an isolated locale, and then finds a reason—alienation, attraction to a woman, rights to territory—to oppose another man in a succession of acts of escalating violence and revenge.
The locales of his novels—Key West, Florida; northern Michigan; Montana—and his scenes of fishing and personal combat suggest the influence of Ernest Hemingway. Whereas McGuane’s early novels are noted for their stylistic extravagance, a growing plainness of style developed in his later novels. They include Panama (1978), Nobody’s Angel (1981), Something to Be Desired(1984), Keep the Change (1989), and Nothing but Blue Skies (1992). After a hiatus from writing novels, McGuane returned with The Cadence of Grass(2002), which depicts a Montana clan’s colorfully tangled lives. It was followed by Driving on the Rim (2010), a freewheeling tale of a small-town doctor.
McGuane also wrote short stories, collected in To Skin a Cat (1986), Gallatin Canyon (2006), Crow Fair (2015), and Cloudbursts (2018). In addition, he penned screenplays, several of which were adaptations of his novels. His essay collections—An Outside Chance (1980; rev. ed., 1990), Some Horses (1999), and The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing (1999)—reflect mostly on leisure and the outdoors, especially his passion for fly-fishing and horseback riding. McGuane was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2010.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-McGuane.
For more information about Thomas McGuane:
“Thomas McGuane on Not Living the Writer’s Life”: https://lithub.com/thomas-mcguane-on-not-living-the-writers-life/
“Thomas McGuane on the American West”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/thomas-mcguane-10-18-21
“The Late Style of Thomas McGuane”: https://believermag.com/the-late-style-of-thomas-mcguane/
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Florence Margaret "Stevie" Smith was born on September 20, 1902 in Yorkshire, England. Her father left the family to join the North Sea Patrol when she was very young. At age three she moved with her sister and mother to the northern London suburb Palmers Green. This was her home until her death in 1971. Her mother died when she was a teenager and she and her sister lived with their spinster aunt, an important figure throughout her life, known as "The Lion." After high school she attended North London Collegiate School for Girls. She began as a secretary with the magazine publisher George Newnes and went on to be the private secretary to Sir Nevill Pearson and Sir Frank Newnes. She began writing poetry in her twenties while working at George Newnes. Her first book, Novel on Yellow Paper, was published in 1936 and drew heavily on her own life experience, examining the unrest in England during World War I. Her first collection of verse, A Good Time Was Had By All (1937), also contained rough sketches or doodles, which became characteristic of her work. These drawings have both a feeling of caprice and doom, and the poetry in the collection is stylistically typical of Smith as it conveys serious themes in a nursery rhyme structure.
While Smith's volatile attachment to the Church of England is evident in her poetry, death, her "gentle friend," is perhaps her most popular subject. Much of her inspiration came from theology and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. She enjoyed reading Tennyson and Browning and read few contemporary poets in an attempt to keep her voice original and pure. Her style is unique in its combination of seemingly prosaic statements, variety of voices, playful meter, and deep sense of irony. Smith was officially recognized with the Chomondeley Award for Poetry in 1966 and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1969. Smith died of a brain tumor on March 7, 1971.
From https://poets.org/poet/stevie-smith.
For more information about Stevie Smith:
“Stevie Smith”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stevie-smith
“The Uneasy Verse of Stevie Smith”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-uneasy-verse-of-stevie-smith
All the Poems: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/all-the-poems/
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Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own nonfiction genre, which gathers a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her works include War’s Unwomanly Face (1985), Last Witnesses (1985), Zinky Boys (1990), Voices from Chernobyl (1997), and Secondhand Time (2013). She has won many international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/339/svetlana-alexievich.
For more information about Svetlana Alexievich:
Secondhand Time: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541184/secondhand-time-by-svetlana-alexievich/
“Suitcase Full of Candy: An Interview with Svetlana Alexievich”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/10/16/suitcase-full-candy-interview-svetlana-alexievich/
“‘We Will Live in a Completely Different World’: A Conversation with Svetlana Alexievich”: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/svetlana-alexievich-lukashenko-belarus/
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Sally Mann (born in Lexington, Virginia, 1951) is one of America’s most renowned photographers. She has received numerous awards, including NEA, NEH, and Guggenheim Foundation grants, and her work is held by major institutions internationally. Her many books include At Twelve (1988), Immediate Family (1992), Still Time (1994), What Remains (2003), Deep South (2005), Proud Flesh (2009), The Flesh and the Spirit (2010), Remembered Light (2016) and Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings (2018). In 2001 Mann was named “America’s Best Photographer” by Time magazine. A 1994 documentary about her work, Blood Ties, was nominated for an Academy Award and the feature film, What Remains, was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2008. Her bestselling memoir, Hold Still (Little, Brown, 2015), received universal critical acclaim, and was named a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2016 Hold Still won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The National Gallery of Art presented a critically lauded show, Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, in 2018. Comprised of 109 prints and several videos, A Thousand Crossings addresses complex issues relating to the American South and will travel internationally until the beginning of 2020. Mann is represented by Gagosian Gallery, New York. She lives in Virginia.
From https://www.sallymann.com/new-page.
For more information about Sally Mann:
Hold Still: https://www.sallymann.com/new-page-2
“The Color of Humanity in Sally Mann’s South”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-color-of-humanity-in-sally-manns-south
“Making Art Out Of Bodies: Sally Mann Reflects on Life and Photography”: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/405937803
Photo by Michelle Hood
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Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
Her books, all published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, FSG published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award forOn Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
From http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/index.shtml
For more information about Susan Sontag:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Maggie Nelson on Sontag, at 19:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-048-maggie-nelson
Rosanne Cash on Sontag, at 12:13: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“Susan Sontag, The Art of Fiction No. 143”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1505/the-art-of-fiction-no-143-susan-sontag
“Where to Start with Susan Sontag”: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/01/13/where-to-start-susan-sontag
“An Interview with Susan Sontag”: https://bostonreview.net/articles/susan-sontag-interview-geoffrey-movius/
Photo by Lynn Gilbert
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Oliver Cromwell, (born April 25, 1599, Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire, Eng.—died Sept. 3, 1658, London), was an English soldier and statesman, lord protector of the republican Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1653–58). He was elected to Parliament in 1628, but Charles I dissolved that Parliament in 1629 and did not call another for 11 years. In 1640 Cromwell was elected to the Short and the Long Parliament. When differences between Charles and Parliament erupted into the English Civil Wars, Cromwell became one of the leading generals on the Parliamentary side, winning many notable victories, including the Battles of Marston Moor and Naseby. He was among those who brought the king to trial and signed his death warrant. After the British Isles were named the Commonwealth, he served as the first chairman of the Council of State. In the next few years he fought against the Royalists in Ireland and Scotland and suppressed a mutiny inspired by the Levelers. When Charles II advanced into England, Cromwell destroyed his army at Worcester (1651), the battle that ended the civil wars. As lord protector, Cromwell raised his country’s status once more to that of a leading European power and concluded the Anglo-Dutch War. Though a devout Calvinist, he pursued policies of religious toleration. He refused the title of king offered to him by Parliament in 1657. After his death he was succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Oliver-Cromwell.
For more information about Oliver Cromwell:
“Oliver Cromwell”: https://www.cromwellmuseum.org/cromwell
Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llmlp/Cromwell_Vol-1/Cromwell_Vol-1.pdf
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Pindar, (born 518/522, Cynoscephalae—died c. 438 BC, Argos), was a Greek poet. A Boeotian of aristocratic birth, Pindar was educated in neighboring Athens and lived much of his life in Thebes. Almost all his early poems have been lost, but his reputation was probably established by his later hymns in honor of the gods. He developed into the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, respected throughout the Greek world. Of his 17 volumes, comprising almost every genre of choral lyric, only four have survived complete, and those lack his musical settings. The extant poems, probably representing his masterpieces, are odes (see Pindaric ode) commissioned to celebrate triumphs in various Hellenic athletic games. Lofty and religious in tone, they are noted for their complexity, rich metaphors, and intensely emotive language.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Pindar.
For more information about Pindar:
“Pindar”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pindar
“Pythian 3”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162%3Abook%3DP.%3Apoem%3D3
The Myth of Sisyphus: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/23470/the-myth-of-sisyphus-by-albert-camus/
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Ingrid Bergman, (born Aug. 29, 1915, Stockholm, Swed.—died Aug. 29, 1982, London, Eng.), Swedish film and stage actress. After appearing in Intermezzo in Sweden, she went to the U.S. to act in the English-language version (1939). Her radiance and unaffected charm made her a star in films such as Casablanca (1942), Gaslight (1944, Academy Award), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) and Notorious (1946). The scandal caused by her love affair with Roberto Rossellini (1949) kept her off the U.S. screen for seven years, and she made films in Europe before being welcomed back to Hollywood in Anastasia (1956, Academy Award). Her later films include Indiscreet (1958) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974, Academy Award).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Ingrid-Bergman.
For more information about Ingrid Bergman:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Isabella Rossellini about Bergman, at 14:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-083-isabella-rossellini
“Ingrid Bergman: 10 Essential Films”: https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/ingrid-bergman-10-essential-films
“The Genius of Ingrid Bergman”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/24/a-life-of-her-own
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Michel Foucault, (born Oct. 15, 1926, Poitiers, France—died June 25, 1984, Paris), French structuralist philosopher and historian. A professor at the Collège de France from 1970, he examined the codes and concepts by which societies operate, especially the “principles of exclusion” (such as the distinctions between the sane and the insane) by which a society defines itself. He theorized that, by surveying social attitudes in relation to institutions such as asylums, hospitals, and prisons, one can examine the development and omnipresence of power. His books—including Madness and Civilization (1961), The Order of Things (1966), The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), Discipline and Punish (1975), and History of Sexuality, 3 vol. (1976–84)—made him one of the most influential intellectuals of his time.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Foucault.
For more information about Michel Foucault:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ayad Akhtar about Foucault, at 24:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-156-ayad-akhtar
“Michel Foucault”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/
The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/610924/the-history-of-sexuality-vol-2-by-michel-foucault/
“Philosophy - Michel Foucault”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBJTeNTZtGU
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Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times.
The operas – “Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha,” “Akhnaten,” and “The Voyage,” among many others – play throughout the world’s leading houses, and rarely to an empty seat. Glass has written music for experimental theater and for Academy Award-winning motion pictures such as “The Hours” and Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun,” while “Koyaanisqatsi,” his initial filmic landscape with Godfrey Reggio and the Philip Glass Ensemble, may be the most radical and influential mating of sound and vision since “Fantasia.” His associations, personal and professional, with leading rock, pop and world music artists date back to the 1960s, including the beginning of his collaborative relationship with artist Robert Wilson. Indeed, Glass is the first composer to win a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music – simultaneously.
He was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School and in Aspen with Darius Milhaud. Finding himself dissatisfied with much of what then passed for modern music, he moved to Europe, where he studied with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland , Virgil Thomson and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble – seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwinds, amplified and fed through a mixer.
The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.” Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops.
There has been nothing “minimalist” about his output. In the past 25 years, Glass has composed more than twenty five operas, large and small; twelve symphonies, thirteen concertos; soundtracks to films ranging from new scores for the stylized classics of Jean Cocteau to Errol Morris’s documentary about former defense secretary Robert McNamara; nine string quartets; a growing body of work for solo piano and organ. He has collaborated with Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, and Doris Lessing, among many others. He presents lectures, workshops, and solo keyboard performances around the world, and continues to appear regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble.
From https://philipglass.com/biography/.
For more information about Philip Glass:
Words Without Music: https://wwnorton.com/books/Words-Without-Music/
“The beginner’s guide to Philip Glass”: https://www.eno.org/discover-opera/the-beginners-guide-to-philip-glass/
“How Philip Glass Went From Driving Taxis to Composing”: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/04/philip-glass-taxi-driver-composer/558278/
“Philip Glass”: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/philip-glass
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Georgia O’Keeffe, (born Nov. 15, 1887, near Sun Prairie, Wis., U.S.—died March 6, 1986, Santa Fe, N.M.) was a U.S. painter. She studied art in Chicago and New York City, where she met and married the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. By the early 1920s, her highly individualistic painting style had emerged, as typified by such works as Black Iris (1926). Her subjects were often enlarged views of the skulls and other bones of animals, flowers and plant organs, shells, rocks, mountains, and other natural forms. Her mysteriously suggestive images of bones and flowers set against a perspectiveless space have inspired a variety of erotic, psychological, and symbolic interpretations. Her later works celebrate the clear skies and desert landscapes of New Mexico, where she moved after her husband’s death in 1946. She is regarded by critics as one of the most original and important American artists, and her works are highly popular among the general public.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Georgia-OKeeffe.
For more information about Georgia O’Keeffe:
“Georgia O’Keeffe”: https://okeeffemuseum.libguides.com/guides/okeeffe
“Georgia O’Keeffe Collections”: https://collections.okeeffemuseum.org
“Georgia O’Keeffe”: https://nmwa.org/art/artists/georgia-okeeffe/
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Born Meta Ann Doak in Pittsburgh, poet and writer Annie Dillard earned a BA and an MA at Hollins College. Influenced by Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, Dillard writes compressed, lyric poetry and prose that engages the balance of daily life within the frame of literature and ideas. In a 2007 review of The Maytrees for the Washington Post, Marilynne Robinson observes, “Annie Dillard's books are like comets, like celestial events that remind us that the reality we inhabit is itself a celestial event, the business of eons and galaxies, however persistently we mistake its local manifestations for mere dust, mere sea, mere self, mere thought. The beauty and obsession of her work are always the integration of being, at the grandest scales of our knowledge of it, with the intimate and momentary sense of life lived.”
Dillard’s numerous books include the poetry collections Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974) and Mornings Like This: Found Poems (1995); the nonfiction books Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), winner of a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award finalist An American Childhood (1987), For the Time Being (1999), and The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New (2016); and the novels The Living (1992) and The Maytrees (2007). She edited the anthologies Best American Essays 1988 and Modern American Memoirs (1996, coedited with Cort Conley).
A member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Dillard also holds honorary doctorates at Boston College, the University of Hartford, and Connecticut College. Additional honors include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, a New York Press Club Award for Excellence, an Appalachian Gold Medallion, a Campion Award, and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in 2014.
Professor emeritus at Wesleyan University, she lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and Wythe County, Virginia. A selection of her papers is archived at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/annie-dillard.
For more information about Annie Dillard:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edwidge Danticat about Dillard, at 14:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-018-edwidge-danticat
The Maytrees: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-maytrees-annie-dillard?variant=32122324156450
“Annie Dillard’s Impossible Pages”: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/magazine/annie-dillards-impossible-pages.html
“Contemplating the Infinite with Annie Dillard”: https://lithub.com/contemplating-the-infinite-with-annie-dillard/
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Louise Labé, original name Louise Charly, byname La Belle Cordière (French: “The Beautiful Rope Maker”), (born c. 1524, Lyon, France—died 1566, Parcieux-en-Dombes), was a French poet, the daughter of a rope maker (cordier).
Labé was a member of the 16th-century Lyon school of humanist poets dominated by Maurice Scève. Her wit, charm, accomplishments, and the freedom she enjoyed provoked unverifiable legends, such as those claiming she rode to war, was taken to dressing like a man, and was a cultured courtesan. In 1555 she published a book of love sonnets, which are remarkable for their emotional intensity and their stylistic simplicity and which probably relate to her passion for the poet Olivier de Magny. The same volume also contained a prose dialogue, Débat de Folie et d’Amour (“Debate of Love and Folly”).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louise-Labe.
For more information about Louise Labe:
Love Sonnets and Elegies: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/232088/love-sonnets-and-elegies-by-louise-labe-translated-by-richard-sieburth-introduction-by-karin-lessing/
“Louise Labé: A conversation with translator Richard Sieburth and editor Jeffrey Yang”: https://poetrysociety.org/features/tributes/louise-labé-a-conversation-with-translator-richard-sieburth-and-editor-jeffrey-yang
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Theognis is an elegiac poet dated to Megara in ancient Greece in the early sixth century BCE. Traditional biographies make him an advisor and nobleman of the city, but modern studies have seen his remaining work as more traditional: a collection of sung/performed poems from the context of the Greek symposium (a drinking party). Greek elegy is closely related to epic and lyric poetry in its form and content, using shared images and languages in different ways based on the audience. Sympotic poetry largely had adult male audiences in mind, spinning out “wisdom poetry” appealing to their interests and experiences—especially those of the drinking banquet. The lines selected for today’s reading are from several dozen that address proper consumption and behavior at a banquet. Other Theognidean themes include friendship, politics, nobility and class, and pederastic love.
We have nearly 2000 lines of poetry attributed to Theognis that have survived from antiquity, but there is debate concerning their “authenticity”. Much of this debate can be avoided if the lines are seen as products of a particular context rather than a particular coherent individual. Indeed, as scholars like Derek Collins have shown, composing and performing songs and poems in a sympotic environment was part of Greek life and over the years collections of lines coalesced around individual authors like Solon and Mimnermus.
The tradition constructing a particular Theognis, however, dates back to before the Hellenistic period. His poems are typically divided into two “Books”, although many lines are preserved in different authors from antiquity. Indeed, Theognis’ quotability is likely an indication of his poetry’s traditional nature and a good reason why so many lines survive to this day.
For more information about Theognis of Megara:
Collins, Derek. 2004. Master of the Game: Competition and Performance in Greek Poetry. Hellenic Studies Series 7. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_CollinsD.Master_of_the_Game.2004.
Compton, Todd M. 2006. Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History. Hellenic Studies Series 11. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Compton.Victim_of_the_Muses.2006. Chapter 10
Figueira, T. and Nagy, G., eds. 1985. Theognis of Megara, Poetry and the Polis. Baltimore. http://www.chs.harvard.edu/chs_pubs/epubs.html.
“The Elegiac Poems of Theognis”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0479%3Avolume%3D1%3Atext%3D11%3Asection%3D2
“Drinking’s Double-Edged Sword”: https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/12/31/drinkings-double-edged-sword/
“Theognidea and Megarian Society”: https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/thomas-j-figueira-theognidea-and-megarian-society/
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Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 26, 1888. He lived in St. Louis during the first eighteen years of his life and attended Harvard University. In 1910, he left the United States for the Sorbonne, having earned both undergraduate and masters degrees and having contributed several poems to the Harvard Advocate. After a year in Paris, he returned to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but returned to Europe and settled in England in 1914. The following year, he married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and began working in London, first as a teacher, and later for Lloyd's Bank.
It was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound, who recognized his poetic genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work in a number of magazines, most notably "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in Poetry in 1915. His first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations, was published in 1917, and immediately established him as a leading poet of the avant-garde. With the publication of The Waste Land in 1922, now considered by many to be the single most influential poetic work of the twentieth century, Eliot's reputation began to grow to nearly mythic proportions; by 1930, and for the next thirty years, he was the most dominant figure in poetry and literary criticism in the English-speaking world.
As a poet, he transmuted his affinity for the English metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century (most notably John Donne) and the nineteenth century French symbolist poets (including Baudelaire and Laforgue) into radical innovations in poetic technique and subject matter. His poems in many respects articulated the disillusionment of a younger post–World War I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era. As a critic also, he had an enormous impact on contemporary literary taste, propounding views that, after his conversion to orthodox Christianity in the late thirties, were increasingly based in social and religious conservatism. His major later poetry collections include Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1943); his books of literary and social criticism include The Sacred Wood (1920), The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933), After Strange Gods (1934), and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1940). Eliot was also an important playwright, whose verse dramas include Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party.
He became a British citizen in 1927; long associated with the publishing house of Faber & Faber, he published many younger poets, and eventually became director of the firm. After a notoriously unhappy first marriage, Eliot separated from his first wife in 1933, and remarried Valerie Fletcher in 1956. T. S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. He died in London on January 4, 1965.
From https://poets.org/poet/t-s-eliot.
For more information about T. S. Eliot:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Simon Critchley about Eliot, at 26:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-008-simon-critchley
“T. S. Eliot”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-s-eliot
“Tradition and the Individual Talent”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69400/tradition-and-the-individual-talent
“A Hundred Years of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-hundred-years-of-t-s-eliots-tradition-and-the-individual-talent
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W.G. Sebald, in full Winfried Georg Sebald, (born May 18, 1944, Wertach, Allgäu, Germany—died December 14, 2001, Norwich, England), was a German-English novelist and scholar who was known for his haunting, nonchronologically constructed stories.
Sebald’s work imaginatively explored themes of memory as they related to the Holocaust. His novels include Schwindel, Gefühle (1990; Vertigo), Die Ausgewanderten (1992; The Emigrants), Die Ringe des Saturn (1995; The Rings of Saturn), Logis in einem Landhaus: über Gottfried Keller, Johann Peter Hebel, Robert Walser und andere(1998; A Place in the Country: On Gottfried Keller, Johann Peter Hebel, Robert Walser, and Others), and Austerlitz (2001).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-G-Sebald.
For more information about W. G. Sebald:
The Rings of Saturn: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/the-rings-of-saturn/
“Why You Should Read W. G. Sebald”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/why-you-should-read-w-g-sebald
“W. G. Sebald: A Profile”: https://www.theparisreview.org/letters-essays/945/wg-sebald-a-profile-james-atlas
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Frida Kahlo, (born July 6, 1907, Coyoacán, Mex.—died July 13, 1954, Coyoacán), was a Mexican painter. The daughter of a German Jewish photographer, she had polio as a child and at 18 suffered a serious bus accident. She subsequently underwent some 35 operations; during her recovery, she taught herself to paint. She is noted for her intense self-portraits, many reflecting her physical ordeal. Like many artists working in post-revolutionary Mexico, Kahlo was influenced by Mexican folk art; this is apparent in her use of fantastical elements and bold use of colour, and in her depictions of herself wearing traditional Mexican, rather than European-style, dress. Her marriage to painter Diego Rivera (from 1929) was tumultuous but artistically rewarding. The Surrealists André Breton and Marcel Duchamp helped arrange exhibits of her work in the U.S. and Europe, and though she denied the connection, the dreamlike quality of her work has often led historians to identify her as a Surrealist. She died at 47. Her house in Coyoacán is now the Frida Kahlo Museum.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Frida-Kahlo.
For more information about Frida Kahlo:
“Frida Kahlo”: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/frida-kahlo-70745811/
“Frida Kahlo: The woman behind the legend”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9XYtPqWLB4
“Unlocking the hidden life of Frida Kahlo”: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180615-unlocking-the-hidden-life-of-frida-kahlo
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Zinn grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class, immigrant household. At 18 he became a shipyard worker and then joined the Air Force and flew bombing missions during World War II. These experiences helped shape his opposition to war and his strong belief in the importance of knowing history.
After attending college under the G.I. Bill, he worked as a warehouse loader while earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. From 1956 to 1963, he taught at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA, where he became active in the Civil Rights Movement. After being fired by Spelman for his support for student protesters, Zinn became a professor of political science at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement in 1988.
Zinn was the author of dozens of books, including A People’s History of the United States, the play Marx in Soho, Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, and SNCC: The New Abolitionists. He received many awards including the Lannan Foundation Literary Award for Nonfiction, the Eugene V. Debs award for his writing and political activism, and the Ridenhour Courage Prize.
From https://www.howardzinn.org/about/biography/.
For more information about Howard Zinn:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Mona Eltahawy about Zinn, at 13:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-069-mona-eltahawy
The Zinn Reader: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213913/the-zinn-reader-by-howard-zinn/
“Remembering the People’s Historian Howard Zinn at 90”:
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/24/be_honest_about_the_history_of
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Abraham Joshua Heschel, (born 1907, Warsaw, Pol., Russian Empire [now in Poland]—died Dec. 23, 1972, New York, N.Y., U.S.), was a Jewish theologian and philosopher, noted for his presentation of the prophetic and mystical aspects of Judaism and for his attempt to construct a modern philosophy of religion on the basis of the ancient and medieval Jewish tradition.
After a traditional Jewish education, Heschel went on to higher studies at the University of Berlin and the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. He taught at the latter school, at the noted Jüdisches Lehrhaus at Frankfurt am Main, at the Institute of Jewish Studies in Warsaw after being deported from Nazi Germany (1938), at the Institute for Jewish Learning in London, and at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, before taking the chair of professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City (1945), a post he held until his death.
Heschel sought to evoke in 20th-century man the inner depth of devotion and spontaneous response that he discerned in traditional Jewish piety. He also emphasized social action as an expression of the ethical concern of the pious man and was at the forefront of protests and demonstrations in the 1960s and ’70s. Although he came to the English-speaking world relatively late in life, he soon achieved a vivid and moving English prose style. Among his best-known works are The Earth Is the Lord’s (1950); Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (1951); The Sabbath: Its Meaning to Modern Man (1951); Man’s Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (1954); God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism(1956); and The Prophets (1962; originally published in German in 1936).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham-Joshua-Heschel.
For more information about Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“Abraham Joshua Heschel”: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/heschel-abraham-joshua
God in Search of Man: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374513313/godinsearchofman
“The Radical Heschel”: https://jewishcurrents.org/the-radical-heschel
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Max Frisch, in full Max Rudolf Frisch, (born May 15, 1911, Zürich, Switzerland—died April 4, 1991, Zürich), was a Swiss dramatist and novelist, noted for his depictions of the moral dilemmas of 20th-century life. In 1933 Frisch withdrew from the University of Zürich, where he had studied German literature, and became a newspaper correspondent. After touring southern and eastern Europe from 1934 to 1936, he returned to Zürich, where he studied architecture. Frisch worked as an architect after service in the Swiss army during World War II. He abandoned architecture in 1955 to devote himself full-time to writing.
Frisch’s play Santa Cruz (1947) established the central theme found throughout his subsequent works: the predicament of the complicated, skeptical individual in modern society. One of Frisch’s earliest dramas was the morality play Nun singen sie wieder (1946; Now They Sing Again), in which Surrealistic tableaux reveal the effects caused by hostages being assassinated by German Nazis. His other historical melodramas included Die chinesische Mauer (1947; The Chinese Wall) and the bleak Als der Krieg zu Ende war (1949; When the War Was Over). Reality and dream are used to depict the terrorist fantasies of a responsible government prosecutor in Graf Öderland (1951; Count Oederland), while Don Juan oder die Liebe zur Geometrie(1953; Don Juan, or The Love of Geometry) is a reinterpretation of the legend of the famous lover of that name. In his powerful parable play Biedermann und die Brandstifter (1958; The Firebugs, also published as The Fire Raisers), arsonists insinuate themselves into the house of the weak-willed, complacent Biedermann, who allows them to destroy his home and his world rather than confront them. Frisch’s later plays included Andorra (1961), with its theme of collective guilt, and Biografie(published 1967; Biography), which deals with social relationships and their limitations.
Frisch’s early novels Stiller (1954; I’m Not Stiller), Homo Faber (1957), and Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964; A Wilderness of Mirrors) portray aspects of modern intellectual life and examine the theme of identity. His autobiographical works included two noteworthy diaries, Tagebuch 1946–1949 (1950; Sketchbook 1946–1949) and Tagebuch 1966–1971 (1972; Sketchbook 1966–1971). His later novels included Montauk: Eine Erzählung (1975), Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän (1979; Man in the Holocene), and Blaubart (1982; Bluebeard).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Frisch.
For more information about Max Frisch:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Etgar Keret about Frisch, at 16:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-075-etgar-keret
“Max Frisch, The Art of Fiction No. 113”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2367/the-art-of-fiction-no-113-max-frisch
Homo Faber: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/homo-faber-max-frisch/1100623656
Photo by Comet Photo AG/ETH-Bibliothek: http://doi.org/10.3932/ethz-a-000654914
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Philippus was a Greek writer of epigrams, who lived in the middle of the first century A.D. He produced a compilation of his own epigrams and epigrams by various other poets of the preceding 150 years, which was called the "Garland of Philip"; much of this compilation has been preserved, because it was incorporated into the Greek Anthology.
From http://www.attalus.org/poetry/philippus.html.
For more information about Philip of Thessalonika:
“Greek Anthology, Volume 3”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Anth.+Gr.+9.575&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0474
A Dictionary of Classical Greek Quotations: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/dictionary-of-classical-greek-quotations-9781784534929/
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Billy Collins is the author of twelve collections of poetry including The Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He is also the editor of Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds. A former Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York, Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Florida with his wife Suzannah.
From https://billycollinspoetry.com/bios/billy-collins.
For more information about Billy Collins:
The Rain in Portugal: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213127/the-rain-in-portugal-by-billy-collins/
“Billy Collins”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/billy-collins
“Billy Collins, The Art of Poetry No. 83”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/482/the-art-of-poetry-no-83-billy-collins
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Marie Howe is the author of four volumes of poetry: Magdalene: Poems (W.W. Norton, 2017); The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W.W. Norton, 2009); What the Living Do (1997); and The Good Thief (1988). She is also the co-editor of a book of essays, In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic (1994). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, Agni, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, and The Partisan Review, among others.
From http://www.mariehowe.com/home.
For more information about Marie Howe:
“What the Living Do”: https://wwnorton.com/books/What-the-Living-Do/
“Marie Howe”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marie-howe
“Poet Marie Howe on ‘What the Living Do’ After Loss”: https://www.npr.org/2014/04/25/306528499/poet-marie-howe-on-what-the-living-do-after-loss
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Marshall Sahlins (1930–2021) was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Chicago and the author of many books, including Stone Age Economics and Culture and Practical Reason.
From https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691215921/the-new-science-of-the-enchanted-universe.
For more information about Marshall Sahlins:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Nathalie Etoke about Sahlins, at 06:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-176-nathalie-etoke
“‘What the Foucault?’ and Other After-Dinner Musings”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/05/foucault-dinner-musings/
“Marshall D. Sahlins, titan of anthropology, 1930-2021”: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/marshall-d-sahlins-titan-anthropology-1930-2021
“What the Foucault?”: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/W/bo28583706.html
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Czesław Miłosz was born to Weronika and Aleksander Milosz on June 30, 1911, in Szetejnie, Lithuania (then under the domination of the Russian tsarist government). Milosz graduated from high school in 1929, and in 1930 his first poems were published in Alma Mater Vilnenis, a university magazine. In 1931 he cofounded the Polish avant-garde literary group "Zagary"; his first collection of verse appeared in 1933. He spent most of World War II in Nazi-occupied Warsaw working for underground presses.
After the war, he came to the United States as a diplomat for the Polish communist government, working at the Polish consulate first in New York City, then in Washington D. C. In 1950 he was transferred to Paris, and the following year he requested and received political asylum. He spent the next decade in Paris as a freelance writer. In 1953 he published The Captive Mind (Alfred A. Knopf), and his novel, The Seizure of Power (Criterion Books, 1955), received the Prix Littéraire European from the Swiss Book Guild. In 1960 he moved to the United States to become a lecturer in Polish literature at the University of California at Berkeley. He later became professor of Slavic languages and literature. He did not visit Poland again until 1981.
In 1980, Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His other honors include an award for poetry translations from the Polish PEN Center in Warsaw, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He has written virtually all of his poems in his native Polish, although his work was banned in Poland until after he won the Nobel Prize. He has also translated the works of other Polish writers into English, and has cotranslated his own works with such poets as Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky. His translations into Polish include portions of the Bible (from Hebrew and Greek) and works by Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, John Milton, William Shakespeare, Simone Weil, and Walt Whitman. He died on August 14, 2004.
From https://poets.org/poet/czeslaw-milosz.
For more information about Czesław Miłosz:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elif Shafak about Milosz, at 02:08: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-025-elif-shafak
Edward Hirsch about Milosz, at 18:58: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
Suketu Mehta about Milosz, at 16:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-079-suketu-mehta
“The Separate Notebooks”: https://www.amazon.com/Separate-Notebooks-Czeslaw-Milosz/dp/0880010312/
“Czeslaw Milosz”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/czeslaw-milosz
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Mark Strand was born on Canada's Prince Edward Island on April 11, 1934. He received a BA from Antioch College in Ohio in 1957 and attended Yale University, where he was awarded the Cook prize and the Bergin prize. After receiving his BFA degree in 1959, Strand spent a year studying at the University of Florence on a Fulbright fellowship. In 1962 he received his MA from the University of Iowa.
He was the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Collected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014); Almost Invisible (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012); New Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); Man and Camel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006); Blizzard of One (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), which won the Pulitzer Prize; Dark Harbor (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993); The Continuous Life (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990); Selected Poems (Atheneum, 1980); The Story of Our Lives (Atheneum, 1973); and Reasons for Moving (Atheneum, 1968).
He also published two books of prose, several volumes of translation (of works by Rafael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, among others), several monographs on contemporary artists, and three books for children. He has edited a number of volumes, including 100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century (W. W. Norton, 2005), The Golden Ecco Anthology (1994), The Best American Poetry 1991, and Another Republic: 17 European and South American Writers (with Charles Simic, 1976).
His honors included the Bollingen Prize, a Rockefeller Foundation award, three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the 2004 Wallace Stevens Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 1979, the 1974 Edgar Allen Poe Prize from the Academy of American Poets, as well as fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. He served as poet laureate of the United States from 1990 to 1991 and as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1995 to 2000. He taught English and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York City. He died at eighty years old on November 29, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York.
From https://poets.org/poet/mark-strand.
For more information about Mark Strand:
“Mark Strand”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mark-strand
“The Coming of Light”: https://poets.org/poem/coming-light
“Mark Strand, The Art of Poetry No. 77”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1070/the-art-of-poetry-no-77-mark-strand
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Martha Collins’ eleventh book of poetry, Casualty Reports, will be published in the Pitt Poetry Series in October 2022. Her tenth book, Because What Else Could I Do (Pittsburgh, 2019), won the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award. Her previous poetry books include two volumes of linked sequences, Night Unto Night and Day Unto Day (Milkweed, 2018 & 2014), and three works that focus on race and racism: Admit One: An American Scrapbook (Pittsburgh, 2016), White Papers (Pittsburgh, 2012), and Blue Front (Graywolf, 2006).
Blue Front, a book-length poem based on a lynching the poet’s father witnessed as a child, won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was chosen as one of “25 Books to Remember from 2006” by the New York Public Library; both Blue Front and White Papers won Ohioana awards. Collins’ other awards include fellowships from the NEA, the Bunting Institute, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation, as well as three Pushcart Prizes, the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, the Laurence Goldstein Poetry Prize, and residency grants from the Lannan Foundation, the Siena Art Institute, the Santa Fe Art Institute, and the Women’s International Study Center.
An active translator, Collins has also published four volumes of co-translations from the Vietnamese and co-edited, with Kevin Prufer, Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (Graywolf, 2017). A fifth co-translated volume, Dreaming the Mountain: Poems by Tue Sy, with Nyugen Ba Chung, will be published by Milkweed in spring 2023. Collins has also co-edited other anthologies, including two volumes in the Unsung Masters Series, on Wendy Battin (2020) and Catherine Breese Davis (2015), and a volume of essays on the poet Jane Cooper (Michigan, 2019, with Celia Bland).
Born in Nebraska and raised in Iowa, Collins was educated at Stanford University and the University of Iowa. She founded the Creative Writing Program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and for ten years served as Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College. She served as Distinguished Visiting Writer at Cornell University in 2010, and currently teaches (and is available for) short-term workshops. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
From https://marthacollinspoet.com/about/.
For more information about Martha Collins:
Some Things Words Can Do: https://marthacollinspoet.com/book/some-things-words-can-do/
“Lines”: https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2009%252F07%252F27.html
“Martha Collins”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/martha-collins
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Raymond Queneau, (born Feb. 21, 1903, Le Havre, France—died Oct. 25, 1976, Paris), was a French author who produced some of the most important prose and poetry of the mid-20th century. After working as a reporter for L’Intransigeant (1936–38), Queneau became a reader for the prestigious Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, a scholarly edition of past and present classical authors, and by 1955 was its director.
From Queneau’s Surrealist period in the 1920s he retained a taste for verbal juggling, a tendency toward black humor, and a derisive posture toward authority. His puns, sneers, spelling extravaganzas, and other linguistic contortions concealed a total pessimism, an obsession with death. His corrosive laughter rang out in the seemingly light verse of his childhood reminiscences in Chêne et chien (1937; “Oak and Dog”), a novel in verse, and in more philosophical poems: Les Ziaux (1943), Petite Cosmogonie portative (1950; “A Pocket Cosmogony”), and Si tu t’imagines (1952; “If You Imagine”).
The pattern of his novels was similar: from a familiar setting—a suburb, an amusement park, or a Paris subway—emerged the vision of an absurd world. Such is the format of Le Chiendent (1933; The Bark Tree); Zazie dans le métro (1959; Zazie), probably his best-known work (filmed 1960); Les Fleurs bleues (1965; The Blue Flowers); and Le Vol d’Icare (1968; The Flight of Icarus). These chronicles of simple people are recounted in language that ranges from everyday slang to the loftiest poetic diction.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Raymond-Queneau.
For more information about Raymond Queneau:
Exercises in Style: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/exercises-in-style-anniversary/
“Raymond Queneau, French Novelist and Literary Figure”: https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/26/archives/raymond-queneau-french-novelist-and-literary-figure-is-dead-at-73.html
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Ivan Illich, (born September 4, 1926, Vienna, Austria—died December 2, 2002, Bremen, Germany), was an Austrian philosopher and Roman Catholic priest known for his radical polemics arguing that the benefits of many modern technologies and social arrangements were illusory and that, still further, such developments undermined humans’ self-sufficiency, freedom, and dignity. Mass education and the modern medical establishment were two of his main targets, and he accused both of institutionalizing and manipulating basic aspects of life.
Illich’s work as a priest took him in 1951 to New York City, where he became involved with the local Puerto Rican community. Building on the strong ties he developed in New York, Illich took a leadership role at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico in 1956. He eventually settled in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and founded the progressive Centro Intercultural de Documentación (Intercultural Center for Documentation) in 1961, which conducted language and cultural courses from an anti-imperialist perspective for missionaries and other students. Illich became increasingly critical of the Roman Catholic Church’s positions on a variety of issues, and he left the priesthood in 1969 after being rebuked by the Vatican. He subsequently taught at universities around the world and published books while maintaining his connection to Mexico.
In Deschooling Society (1971), his best-known and most influential book, Illich articulated his highly radical ideas about schooling and education. Drawing on his historical and philosophical training as well as his years of experience as an educator, Illich presented schools as places where consumerism and obedience to authority were paramount and genuine learning was replaced by a process of advancement through institutional hierarchies accompanied by the accumulation of largely meaningless credentials. In place of compulsory mass schooling, Illich suggested, it would be preferable to adopt a model of learning in which knowledge and skills were transmitted through networks of informal and voluntary relationships.
Illich’s views on the medical establishment, laid out in Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health (1975), were equally radical. He disputed the notion that modern medicine had led to an overall reduction in human suffering and asserted that humanity was, in fact, afflicted with an ever-increasing number of ailments caused by medical interventions. Furthermore, he argued that modern medicine, by seeming to offer cures for nearly all conditions—including many that had not been considered pathological by earlier generations—raised a false hope that all suffering could be avoided. The effect, he concluded, was to undermine humans’ individual and communal resources for coping with life’s inevitable hardships, thereby turning them into passive consumers of medical services. Illich was in high demand as a lecturer and teacher in the 1970s and 1980s; his popularity waned somewhat in subsequent decades. True to his convictions, over the last years of his life he refused medical treatment for a tumor that ultimately caused his death.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ivan-Illich.
For more information about Ivan Illich:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Astra Taylor about Illich, at 18:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-159-astra-taylor
David Rieff about Illich, at 21:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-059-david-rieff
Medical Nemesis: https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Nemesis-Expropriation-Ivan-Illich/dp/0394712455
“Ivan Illich”: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/dec/09/guardianobituaries.highereducation
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Carl Jung, in full Carl Gustav Jung, (born July 26, 1875, Kesswil, Switzerland—died June 6, 1961, Küsnacht), was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded analytic psychology, in some aspects a response to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of the extraverted and the introverted personality, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, literature, and related fields.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung.
For more information about Carl Jung:
The Development of Personality: https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Works-Jung-Vol-Development/dp/0691018383
“Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious”: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html
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Edna O’Brien has written more than twenty-five works of fiction, including The Little Red Chairs and The Light of Evening. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she has lived in London for many years.
From https://us.macmillan.com/author/ednaobrien.
For more information about Edna O’Brien:
“Edna O’Brien, The Art of Fiction No. 82”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2978/the-art-of-fiction-no-82-edna-obrien
“Edna O’Brien on turning 90”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/13/edna-obrien-90-ireland-greatest-writer-final-novel
“Edna O’Brien is Still Writing About Women on the Run”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/14/edna-obrien-is-still-writing-about-women-on-the-run
Photo by Alessio Jacona:
https://flickr.com/photos/10296406@N00/19083354039
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Since emerging onto the international art scene in the early 1960s, Yoko Ono has made profound contributions to visual art, performance, filmmaking, and experimental music. Born in Tokyo in 1933, she moved with her family to New York in the mid-1950s and enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College. Over the next decade she lived in New York, Tokyo, and London, greatly influencing the international development of Fluxus and Conceptual art.
Ono’s earliest works were often based on instructions that she communicated to the public in verbal or written form. Painting to Be Stepped On (1960–61), for example, invited people to tread upon a piece of canvas placed directly on the floor, either physically or in their minds. Though easily overlooked, the work radically questioned the division between art and the everyday. In 1964, she compiled more than 150 of her instructions in her groundbreaking artist’s book, Grapefruit. The instructions range from feasible to improbable, often relying upon the reader’s imagination to complete the work. At turns poetic, humorous, unsettling, and idealistic, Ono’s early instruction pieces anticipated her later work, such as Cut Piece (1964), a performance in which people were invited to cut away portions of her clothing; Sky Machine (1966), a sculpture that speaks to her environmental concerns; and To See the Sky (2015), a spiral staircase installed beneath a skylight that visitors were invited to ascend in order to contemplate the sky.
Ono’s collaborations with her late husband, Beatles legend John Lennon, including Bed-In(1969), a weeklong antiwar protest in their honeymoon suite, boldly communicated her commitment to social justice. Never one to confine her work to the gallery space, Ono continues to perform with her avant-garde Plastic Ono Band, promote world peace through her ongoing WAR IS OVER! campaign, and create works that blur the boundaries between art, politics, and society. In recent years, she has embraced social media to communicate her artistic and activist messages to even broader audiences.
From https://www.moma.org/artists/4410.
For more information about Yoko Ono:
“Map Piece”: https://teaching.ellenmueller.com/walking/2021/05/30/yoko-ono-map-piece-1962-64/
Grapefruit: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Grapefruit/Yoko-Ono/9780743201100
“Peel, Peek, Touch, Rub: Reading Yoko Ono’s ‘Grapefruit’”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/peel-peek-touch-rub-reading-yoko-onos-grapefruit
Photo by Earl McGehee: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ejmc/5548777884/
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Arthur Miller, (born Oct. 17, 1915, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Feb. 10, 2005, Roxbury, Conn.), was a U.S. playwright. He began writing plays while a student at the University of Michigan. His first important play, All My Sons (1947), was followed by his most famous work, Death of a Salesman (1949, Pulitzer Prize), the tragedy of a man destroyed by false values that are in large part the values of his society. Noted for combining social awareness with a searching concern for his characters’ inner lives, Miller wrote many other plays, including The Crucible (1953), which uses a plot about the Salem witch trials to attack McCarthyism, A View from the Bridge (1955), After the Fall (1964), The Last Yankee (1992), and Resurrection Blues (2002). He also wrote short stories, essays, and the screenplay for The Misfits (1961), which starred his second wife, Marilyn Monroe.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Arthur-Miller-American-playwright.
For more information about Arthur Miller:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Casey Gerald about Miller, at 16:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-133-casey-gerald
Ramsess about Miller, at 17:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-118-ramsess
“Arthur Miller”: https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/arthur-miller-biography
“Arthur Miller, The Art of Theater No. 2”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4369/the-art-of-theater-no-2-arthur-miller
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Herman Melville, orig. Herman Melvill, (born Aug. 1, 1819, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 28, 1891, New York City), was a U.S. writer. Born to a wealthy New York family that suffered great financial losses, Melville had little formal schooling and began a period of wanderings at sea in 1839. In 1841 he sailed on a whaler bound for the South Seas; the next year he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands. His adventures in Polynesia were the basis of his successful first novels, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847). After his allegorical fantasy Mardi (1849) failed, he quickly wrote Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850), about the rough life of sailors. Moby-Dick (1851), his masterpiece, is both an intense whaling narrative and a symbolic examination of the problems and possibilities of American democracy; it brought him neither acclaim nor reward when published. Increasingly reclusive and despairing, he wrote Pierre(1852), which, intended as a piece of domestic “ladies” fiction, became a parody of that popular genre, Israel Potter (1855), The Confidence-Man (1857), and magazine stories, including “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853) and “Benito Cereno” (1855). After 1857 he wrote verse. In 1866 a customs-inspector position finally brought him a secure income. He returned to prose for his last work, the novel Billy Budd, Foretopman, which remained unpublished until 1924. Neglected for much of his career, Melville came to be regarded by modern critics as one of the greatest American writers.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Herman-Melville.
For more information about Herman Melville:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Greg Grandin about Melville, at 01:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-054-greg-grandin
Moby Dick: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Moby-Dick/Herman-Melville/Folger-Shakespeare-Library/9780671028350
“The Life of Herman Melville”: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/whaling-biography-herman-melville/
“Herman Melville at Home”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/herman-melville-at-home
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Plato , (born 428/427, Athens, Greece—died 348/347 BC, Athens), was a Greek philosopher, who with his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture. His family was highly distinguished; his father claimed descent from the last king of Athens, and his mother was related to Critias and Charmides, extremist leaders of the oligarchic terror of 404. Plato (whose acquired name refers to his broad forehead, and thus his range of knowledge) must have known Socrates from boyhood. After Socrates was put to death in 399, Plato fled Athens for Megara, then spent the next 12 years in travel. Upon his return, he founded the Academy, an institute of scientific and philosophical research, where Aristotle was one of his students. Building on but also departing from Socrates’ thought, he developed a profound and wide-ranging philosophical system, subsequently known as Platonism. His thought has logical, epistemological, and metaphysical aspects, but much of its underlying motivation is ethical. It is presented in his many dialogues, in most of which Socrates plays a leading role.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Plato.
For more information about Plato:
“Plato”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/
“Plato, Republic”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D8
“PHILOSOPHY - Plato”: https://youtu.be/VDiyQub6vpw
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Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky, (born April 4, 1932, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—died December 29, 1986, Paris, France), was a Soviet motion-picture director whose films won acclaim in the West though they were censored by Soviet authorities at home. The son of a prominent Russian poet, Tarkovsky studied filmmaking at the All-Union State Cinematography Institute and graduated in 1960. His diploma work, Katok i skripka (1960; The Steamroller and the Violin), won a prize at the New York Film Festival, and his first full-length feature film, Ivanovo detstvo (1962; Ivan’s Childhood), about the experiences of an orphaned boy on the Russian front during World War II, established his international reputation. His next film, Andrey Rublyov (1965), the story of a medieval Russian icon painter, was acclaimed as a masterpiece for its vivid evocation of the Middle Ages. His subsequent films included Solyaris (1971; Solaris), Zerkalo(1975; A Mirror), and Stalker (1979).
Tarkovsky’s films were notable for their striking visual images, their symbolic, visionary tone, and their paucity of conventional plot and dramatic structure. Several of his films were barred from domestic distribution by the Soviet authorities, and in 1984 Tarkovsky decided to remain in the West after having filmed Nostalghia (1983; Nostalgia) in Italy. His last motion picture, also made in western Europe, was The Sacrifice (1986).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrey-Arsenyevich-Tarkovsky.
For more information about Andrei Tarkovsky:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
George Prochnik about Tarkovsky, at 07:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-162-george-prochnik
“The Drenching Richness of Andrei Tarkovsky”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/15/the-drenching-richness-of-andrei-tarkovsky
“Tarkovsky on Art”: https://youtu.be/V27XlEDLdtE
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Ellen Bass is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Other poetry collections include Like a Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014)—which was a finalist for The Paterson Poetry Prize, The Publishers Triangle Award, The Milt Kessler Poetry Award, The Lambda Literary Award, and the Northern California Book Award—The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), and Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002), which won The Lambda Literary Award. She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks! (Doubleday, 1973).
Her poems have frequently appeared in The New Yorker and The American Poetry Review, as well as in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The American Poetry Review, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Sun and many other journals and anthologies. She was awarded Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and The California Arts Council and received the Elliston Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati, Nimrod/Hardman’s Pablo Neruda Prize, The Missouri Review’s Larry Levis Award, the Greensboro Poetry Prize, the New Letters Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Poetry Prize, and three Pushcart Prizes.
Her non-fiction books include Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth (HarperCollins, 1996), I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins, 1983), and The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse(Harper Collins, 1988, 2008), which has sold over a million copies and has been translated into twelve languages. Ellen founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, CA jails. She currently teaches in the low residency MFA writing program at Pacific University.
From https://www.ellenbass.com/about/.
For more information about Ellen Bass:
“Ellen Bass”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ellen-bass
“The Poem is an Exploration: Ellen Bass Interviewed”: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/ellen-bass-interviewed/
“A Conversation with Ellen Bass”: https://theadroitjournal.org/issue-thirty-six/ellen-bass-interview/
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Max Horkheimer, (born February 14, 1895, Stuttgart, Germany—died July 7, 1973, Nürnberg), was a German philosopher who, as director of the Institute for Social Research(1930–41; 1950–58), developed an original interdisciplinary movement, known as critical theory, that combined Marxist-oriented political philosophy with social and cultural analysis informed by empirical research.
Horkheimer studied philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1922. In 1930, after four years as lecturer in social philosophy at Frankfurt, he was named director of the university’s newly founded Institute for Social Research. Under his leadership, the institute attracted an extraordinarily talented array of philosophers and social scientists—including Theodor Adorno (1903–69), Eric Fromm (1900–80), Leo Löwenthal (1900–93), Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), and Franz Neumann (1900–54)—who (along with Horkheimer) came to be known collectively as the Frankfurt School. Horkheimer also served as editor of the institute’s literary organ, Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (“Journal for Social Research”), which published pathbreaking studies in political philosophy and cultural analysis from 1932 to 1941.
The institute’s first study in this vein, “Authority and the Family,” was still incomplete when the Nazi seizure of power forced most members of the institute to flee Germany in 1933. Horkheimer moved to New York City, where he reestablished the institute and its journal at Columbia University. Throughout the remainder of the decade, he sought to keep the flame of critical theory burning by writing a number of programmatic essays for the Zeitschrift. Among the most influential of these works was “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937), in which he contrasted what he considered the socially conformist orientation of traditional political philosophy and social science with the brand of critical Marxism favoured by the institute. According to Horkheimer, the traditional approaches are content to describe existing social institutions more or less as they are, and their analyses thus have the indirect effect of legitimating repressive and unjust social practices as natural or objective. By contrast, critical theory, through its detailed understanding of the larger historical and social context in which these institutions function, would expose the system’s false claims to legitimacy, justice, and truth.
In 1941 the institute, which had been beset by financial troubles, was effectively dissolved, and Horkheimer moved to Los Angeles. There he collaborated with Adorno on an influential study, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), which traced the rise of fascism and other forms of totalitarianism to the Enlightenment notion of “instrumental” reason. The work’s pessimism reflects the defeats that progressive European social movements had suffered since the early 1930s. A more accessible version of the book’s argument also appeared in 1947 under the title The Eclipse of Reason. In 1950 Horkheimer returned to Frankfurt, where he reestablished the institute and ultimately became rector of the university. His later work displays his enduring fascination with the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) and the philosophy of religion. Horkheimer felt that Schopenhauer’s pessimistic social philosophy more faithfully reflected the lost prospects for utopia than did the more optimistic social theories of the postwar period.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Horkheimer.
For more information about Max Horkheimer:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Carolin Emcke about Horkheimer, at 25:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-060-carolin-emcke
“Max Horkheimer”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/horkheimer/
Towards a New Manifesto: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2679-towards-a-new-manifesto
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Lydia Davis is the author of Essays One, a collection of essays on writing, reading, art, memory, and the Bible. She is also the author of The End of the Story: A Novel and many story collections, including Varieties of Disturbance, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award for Fiction; Can’t and Won’t (2014); and The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, described by James Wood in The New Yorker as “a grand cumulative achievement.” Davis is also the acclaimed translator of Swann’s Way and Madame Bovary, both awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize, and of many other works of literature. She has been named both a Chevalier and an Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and in 2020 she received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.
From https://us.macmillan.com/author/lydiadavis.
For more information about Lydia Davis:
“Lydia Davis, The Art of Fiction No. 227”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6366/art-of-fiction-no-227-lydia-davis
“An Interview with Lydia Davis”: https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-lydia-davis/
Varieties of Disturbance: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374281731/varietiesofdisturbance
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Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her work has been supported most recently by a Guggenheim Fellowship. She grew up in Sonoma, California and now lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she writes, teaches remotely, and hosts the critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Her new book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in May 2022.
From https://www.adalimon.net/about.
For more information about Ada Limón:
The Hurting Kind: https://milkweed.org/book/the-hurting-kind
“Sanctuary”: https://www.vqronline.org/poetry/2021/12/sanctuary
“A Conversation with Ada Limón”: https://inside.ewu.edu/willowspringsmagazine/a-conversation-with-ada-limon/
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Poet, essayist, and thinker Paul Ambroise Valéry was born in the Mediterranean town of Séte, France, on October 30, 1871. He attended the lycée at Montpellier and studied law at the University of Montpellier. Valéry left school early to move to Paris and pursue a life as a poet. In Paris, he was a regular member of Stéphane Mallarmé's Tuesday evening salons. It was at this time that he began to publish poems in avant-garde journals.
In 1892, while visiting relatives in Genoa, Valéry underwent a stark personal transformation. During a violent thunderstorm, he determined that he must free himself "at no matter what cost, from those falsehoods: literature and sentiment." He devoted the next twenty years to studying mathematics, philosophy, and language. From 1892 until 1912, he wrote no poetry. He did begin, however, to keep his ideas and notes in a series of journals, which were published in twenty-nine volumes in 1945. He also wrote essays and the book La Soirée avec M. Teste (The Evening with Monsieur Teste, 1896).
Valéry supported himself during this period first with a job in the War Department, and then as a secretary at the Havas newspaper agency. This job required him to work only a few hours per day, and he spent the rest of his time pursuing his own ideas. He married Jeannie Gobillard in 1900, and they had one son and one daughter. In 1912 Andre Gide persuaded Valéry to collect and revise his earlier poems. In 1917 Valéry published La Jeune Parque (The Young Fate), a dramatic monologue of over five-hundred lines, and in 1920 he published Album de vers anciens, 1890-1920 (Album of Old Verses). His second collection of poetry, Charmes (Charms) appeared in 1922. Despite tremendous critical and popular acclaim, Valéry again put aside writing poetry. In 1925 he was elected to the Académe Francaise. He spent the remaining twenty years of his life on frequent lecture tours in and out of France, and he wrote numerous essays on poetry, painting, and dance. Paul Valéry died in Paris in July of 1945 and was given a state funeral.
From https://poets.org/poet/paul-valery.
For more information about Paul Valéry:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Jorie Graham about Valéry, at 31:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-139-jorie-graham
Maggie Nelson about Valéry, at 16:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-048-maggie-nelson
“Paul Valéry”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-valery
Reflections on the World Today: https://www.amazon.com/Reflections-World-Today-Paul-Valery/dp/B000HI6A18
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Herodotus , (born 484?, Helicarnassus, Asia Minor—died 430/420 BC), was a Greek historian. He resided in Athens and then in Thurii in southern Italy. His travels covered a large part of the Persian empire. He is the author of the first great narrative history produced in the ancient world, the History of the Persian Wars. It is a unified artistic masterpiece, with many illuminating digressions and anecdotes skillfully worked into the narrative. Despite many inaccuracies, it remains the leading source of original information about Greece between 550 and 479 BC, as well as that of much of western Asia and Egypt.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Herodotus-Greek-historian.
For more information about Herodotus:
“The Persian Wars”: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674991309
“The Histories by Herodotus”: https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/node/1747
“Herodotus, the Histories”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0016,001:8
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Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including Whose Story Is This?, Call Them By Their True Names (Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction), Cinderella Liberator, Men Explain Things to Me, The Mother of All Questions, and Hope in the Dark, and co-creator of the City of Women map, all published by Haymarket Books; a trilogy of atlases of American cities, The Faraway Nearby, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, and River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). Her forthcoming memoir, Recollections of My Nonexistence, is scheduled to release in March, 2020. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she is a columnist at the Guardian and a regular contributor to Literary Hub.
From http://rebeccasolnit.net/biography/.
For more information about Rebecca Solnit:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Rebecca Solnit on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-191-rebecca-solnit
Merve Emre about Solnit, at 14:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-170-merve-emre
Bill McKibben about Solnit, at 13:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-036-bill-mckibben
Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities: http://rebeccasolnit.net/book/hope-in-the-dark-untold-histories-wild-possibilities/
“An Interview with Rebecca Solnit”: https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-rebecca-solnit/
“Rebecca Solnit - Falling Together”: https://onbeing.org/programs/rebecca-solnit-falling-together/
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The eldest of seven children, Willa Cather was born in Back Creek Valley, Virginia in 1873. When Cather was nine years old, her family moved to rural Webster County, Nebraska. After a year and a half, the family resettled in the county seat of Red Cloud, where Cather lived until beginning her college studies at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1890.
After her graduation in 1895, Cather worked as a journalist and teacher, living first in Pittsburgh and later in New York City. Her first volume of poetry, April Twilights, was published by a vanity press in 1903, and in 1912 she was able to leave editorial work and live as a full-time writer and poet. Over the next several decades, Cather wrote prolifically; her works include Alexander’s Bridge (1912), O Pioneers! (1913), My Ántonia (1918), and A Lost Lady (1923), all of which explored the pioneering experience on the Plains. In 1923, One of Ours (1922) received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Her other well-regarded works include The Professor’s House (1925), My Mortal Enemy (1926), Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), Shadows on the Rock (1931), Lucy Gayheart (1935), and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).
As one of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century, Willa Cather was gifted in conveying an intimate understanding of her characters in relation to their personal and cultural environments—environments that often derived from Red Cloud. Cather died from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 24, 1947 and was buried in the Old Burying Ground in Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire. Engraved on her tombstone is this quotation from My Ántonia: “that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.” Complex and brilliant, Willa Cather lives on through her many devoted readers. Willa Cather is the author of 12 novels, 6 collections of short fiction, 2 editions of her book of poetry, April Twilights, and numerous works of nonfiction, collected journalism, speeches, and letters
From https://www.willacather.org/about-willa-cather.
For more information about Willa Cather:
The Song of the Lark: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/299686/the-song-of-the-lark-by-willa-cather-and-melissa-homestead/
“The Willa Cather Archive”: https://cather.unl.edu
“A Walk in Willa Cather’s Prairie”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/02/a-walk-in-willa-cathers-prairie
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On September 17, 1883, William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began writing poetry while a student at Horace Mann High School, at which time he made the decision to become both a writer and a doctor. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met and befriended Ezra Pound. Pound became a great influence on his writing, and in 1913 arranged for the London publication of Williams's second collection, The Tempers. Returning to Rutherford, where he sustained his medical practice throughout his life, Williams began publishing in small magazines and embarked on a prolific career as a poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright.
Following Pound, he was one of the principal poets of the Imagist movement, though as time went on, he began to increasingly disagree with the values put forth in the work of Pound and especially Eliot, who he felt were too attached to European culture and traditions. Continuing to experiment with new techniques of meter and lineation, Williams sought to invent an entirely fresh—and singularly American—poetic, whose subject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.
His influence as a poet spread slowly during the 1920s and 1930s, overshadowed, he felt, by the immense popularity of Eliot's "The Waste Land"; however, his work received increasing attention in the 1950s and 1960s as younger poets, including Allen Ginsbergand the Beats, were impressed by the accessibility of his language and his openness as a mentor. His major works include Kora in Hell (1920); Spring and All (1923); Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; the five-volume epic Paterson (1963, 1992); and Imaginations (1970). Williams's health began to decline after a heart attack in 1948 and a series of strokes, but he continued writing up until his death in New Jersey on March 4, 1963.
From https://poets.org/poet/william-carlos-williams.
For more information about William Carlos Williams:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Suketu Mehta about Williams, at 20:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-079-suketu-mehta
Lynell George about Williams, at 10:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-021-lynell-george
“William Carlos Williams”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-carlos-williams
“Paterson”: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/paterson/
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Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949. He grew up in Kobe and then moved to Tokyo, where he attended Waseda University. After college, Murakami opened a small jazz bar, which he and his wife ran for seven years. His first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, won the Gunzou Literature Prize for budding writers in 1979. He followed this success with two sequels, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase, which all together form “The Trilogy of the Rat.”
Murakami is also the author of the novels Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World; Norwegian Wood; Dance Dance Dance; South of the Border, West of the Sun; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; Sputnik Sweetheart; Kafka on the Shore; After Dark; 1Q84; and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. He has written three short story collections: The Elephant Vanishes; After the Quake; and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman; and an illustrated novella, The Strange Library.
Additionally, Murakami has written several works of nonfiction. After the Hanshin earthquake and the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995, he interviewed surviving victims, as well as members of the religious cult responsible. From these interviews, he published two nonfiction books in Japan, which were selectively combined to form Underground. He also wrote a series of personal essays on running, entitled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. The most recent of his many international literary honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul. Murakami’s work has been translated into more than fifty languages.
From https://www.harukimurakami.com/author.
For more information about Haruki Murakami:
Kafka on the Shore: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/118718/kafka-on-the-shore-by-haruki-murakami/
“Haruki Murakami, The Art of Fiction No. 182”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2/the-art-of-fiction-no-182-haruki-murakami
“The Underground Worlds of Haruki Murakami”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-underground-worlds-of-haruki-murakami
Photo by Elena Seibert.
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One of Italy’s most famous and controversial filmmakers, Pier Paolo Pasolini was also a novelist and poet. Born in Bologna to a military family that moved frequently, Pasolini began writing poetry at age seven, attended the University of Bologna, and was eventually drafted to serve in World War II; his regiment was captured by the Germans after Italy’s surrender and Pasolini escaped and fled to the small town Casarsa where he lived for years. His first book of poetry, Poesie a Casarsa, published in 1942 before his war experiences, was written in Friulian, his mother’s dialect. Many of Pasolini’s later works, for the screen and page, bring together different orders of experience—folk, suburban, biblical—and attempt to find forms that might encompass proletarian themes, the fringe cultures of Roman prostitutes and pimps, and radical utopianism. According to Adam Thirlwell, “In his movies, he loved fusing the hieratic with the everyday. And in his writing, too, he liked combining two things that don’t usually go together: a classical form or tone that could absorb its squalid subjects.”
Pasolini joined the Communist party in 1946 but was soon expelled for being a homosexual. Nonetheless, inspired by the writings of Antonio Gramsci, Pasolini remained loyal to the Party for the rest of his life, attempting to fuse Marxist tenants with radical Catholicism. In the 1950s Pasolini moved to Rome to be a teacher. In Rome, he became involved with the working classes, fringe subcultures, and criminal underworlds that feature in so many of his films. During this period he also wrote his most famous novels: Ragazzi di Vita (1955) and Una Vita Violenta (1959). The last book became the basis for Pasolini’s first movie, Accatone (1961), which followed the life of a pimp in Rome. Pasolini’s films from the 1960s and early 1970s gained him worldwide recognition: Mamma Roma (1962), Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (1964), Teorema (1968), and a series of films based on medieval tales, Il Decamerone (1971), Racconti di Canterbury (1973), and Il Fiore Delle Mille e una Notte (1973). Pasolini became famous for his radical methods, including hiring nonprofessional casts, and his films’ overtly political and often scandalous content. His last film Salò, o le Centoventi Giornate di Sodoma (1975), for example, adapts a novel by the Marquis de Sade, setting the action in Nazi Europe. Jason Ankeny in The New York Times noted the film is generally “[d]eemed one of the most disquieting motion pictures ever filmed.”
Pasolini published over ten collections of poetry during his lifetime. His collection Le Ceneri di Gramsci (1957) won the Viareggio Prize, and he continued to publish poetry even at the height of his filmmaking career. Pasolini once stated that he made films “as a poet,” adding, “I think one can’t deny that a certain way of feeling something occurs in the same identical way when one is faced with some of my lines and some of my shots.” Pasolini was violently murdered in 1975. Although a male prostitute was charged with the murder and the case officially closed, speculation about the murderers and motivation behind the killing continues.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pier-paolo-pasolini.
For more information about Pier Paolo Pasolini:
“An introduction to Pier Paolo Pasolini”: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/introduction-pier-paolo-pasolini
“Interview: Pier Paolo Pasolini”: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/pier-paolo-pasolini-interview/
“Behind the Myth of Pier Paolo Pasolini”: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/pier-paolo-pasolini-against-avant-garde-review/
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On August 9, 1922, Philip Larkin was born in Coventry, England. He attended St. John's College, Oxford. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945 and, though not particularly strong on its own, is notable insofar as certain passages foreshadow the unique sensibility and maturity that characterizes his later work.
In 1946, Larkin discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy and became a great admirer of his poetry, learning from Hardy how to make the commonplace and often dreary details of his life the basis for extremely tough, unsparing, and memorable poems. With his second volume of poetry, The Less Deceived (1955), Larkin became the preeminent poet of his generation, and a leading voice of what came to be called "The Movement," a group of young English writers who rejected the prevailing fashion for neo-Romantic writing in the style of Yeats and Dylan Thomas. Like Hardy, Larkin focused on intense personal emotion but strictly avoided sentimentality or self-pity.
In 1964, he confirmed his reputation as a major poet with the publication of The Whitsun Weddings, and again in 1974 with High Windows: collections whose searing, often mocking, wit does not conceal the poet's dark vision and underlying obsession with universal themes of mortality, love, and human solitude. Deeply anti-social and a great lover and published critic of American jazz, Larkin never married and worked as a librarian in the provincial city of Hull, where he died on December 2, 1985.
From https://poets.org/poet/philip-larkin.
For more information about Philip Larkin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edward Hirsch about Larkin, at 25:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
Rosanne Cash about Larkin, at 15:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“Philip Larkin”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/philip-larkin
“Philip Larkin, The Art of Poetry No. 30”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3153/the-art-of-poetry-no-30-philip-larkin
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Flavius Philostratus, (born AD 170—died c.245), Greek writer of Roman imperial times who studied at Athens and some time after AD 202 entered the circle of the philosophical Syrian empress of Rome, Julia Domna. On her death he settled in Tyre.
Philostratus’s works include Gymnastikos, a treatise dealing with athletic training; Ērōïkos (“Hero”), a dialogue on the significance of various heroes of the Trojan War; Epistolai erōtikai (“Erotic Epistles”), one of which was the inspiration for the English poet Ben Jonson’s To Celia (“Drink to me only with thine eyes”); and two sets of descriptions (ekphraseis) of paintings of mythological scenes, attributed to two men named Philostratus, possibly the well-known figure and his grandson. Flavius Philostratus’s Bioi sophistōn (Lives of the Sophists) treats both the Sophists of the 5th century BC and the later philosophers and rhetoricians of the Second Sophistic, a name coined by Philostratus to describe the art of declamation in Greek as practiced in the Roman Empire from the time of Nero (AD 54–68) to Philostratus’s own day.
Philostratus’s work on the life of the Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana (1st century AD), which was commissioned by Julia Domna, is revealing of religious attitudes in a transitional period. His idealized portrait of Apollonius as an ascetic miracle worker was taken up with enthusiasm by the pagan elites of the next centuries—when Christianity had become of political significance—as a counter figure to the Christian Jesus. In Philostratus’s moderately Atticizing prose (i.e., aspiring to the Classical style of 5th-century-BC Athens and opposed to the florid and bombastic style of Greek associated especially with Asia Minor), formal elegance was a way to give new significance and validity to the traditional cultural heritage of the pagan Greek world.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Flavius-Philostratus.
For more information about Philostratus:
Lives of the Sophists: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674991491
“The Sophist Aelian”: https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2018/03/11/the-sophist-aelian-bachelor-homebody-and-cowardly-wit/
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Bertolt Brecht, orig. Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, (born Feb. 10, 1898, Augsburg, Ger.—died Aug. 14, 1956, East Berlin, E.Ger.), was a German playwright and poet. He studied medicine at Munich (1917–21) before writing his first plays, including Baal (1922). Other plays followed, including A Man’s a Man (1926), as well as a considerable body of poetry. With the composer Kurt Weill he wrote the satirical musicals The Threepenny Opera (1928; film, 1931), which gained him a wide audience, and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930). In these years he became a Marxist and developed his theory of epic theatre. With the rise of the Nazis he went into exile, first in Scandinavia (1933–41), then in the U.S., where he wrote his major essays and the plays Mother Courage and Her Children (1941), The Life of Galileo (1943), The Good Woman of Sichuan (1943), and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948). Harassed for his politics, in 1949 he returned to East Germany, where he established the Berliner Ensemble theatre troupe and staged his own plays, including The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1957). He outlined his theory of drama in A Little Organum for the Theatre (1949).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Bertolt-Brecht.
For more information about Bertolt Brecht:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
George Prochnik about Brecht, at 18:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-162-george-prochnik
Kwame Dawes about Brecht, at 14:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-037-kwame-dawes
“Bertolt Brecht”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/bertolt-brecht
“The Poet of Ill Tidings”: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-poet-of-ill-tidings/
“Brecht Was a Revolutionary”: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/bertolt-brecht-marxist-culture-politics-estrangement
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Barry Lopez, in full Barry Holstun Lopez, (born January 6, 1945, Port Chester, New York, U.S.—died December 25, 2020, Eugene, Oregon), was an American writer best known for his books on natural history and the environment. In such works as Of Wolves and Men (1978) and Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape (1986; National Book Award), Lopez employed natural history as a metaphor for wider moral issues.
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame (B.A., 1966; M.A.T., 1968), Lopez briefly attended the University of Oregon before leaving to become a full-time writer. In 1977 Lopez’s collection of Native American trickster stories, Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America, was published. He followed this volume with the critically acclaimed Of Wolves and Men, which includes scientific information, folklore, and essays on the wolf’s role in human culture.
Lopez also wrote such fictional narratives as Desert Notes: Reflections in the Eye of a Raven (1976) and River Notes: The Dance of Herons (1979). Among his short-story volumes were Winter Count (1981), Light Action in the Caribbean (2000), and Outside (2014). Other notable works included the essay collections Crossing Open Ground (1988) and About This Life (1998). In Horizon (2019) Lopez recounted his various travels. In addition, he authored books for young adults on natural history.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barry-Lopez.
For more information about Barry Lopez:
“Remembering Nature Writer Barry Lopez”: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/08/954833226/remembering-nature-writer-barry-lopez
“Dialogue: Author Barry Lopez”: https://www.pbs.org/video/author-barry-lopez-part-one-xclkkt/
“An Interview with Barry Lopez”: https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-barry-lopez/
Photo by David Liittschwager
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Born in New York City on July 9, 1936, June Jordan attended Barnard College. She was an activist, poet, writer, teacher, and prominent figure in the civil rights, feminist, antiwar, and LGBTQ movements of the twentieth century.
Her numerous books of poetry include The Essential June Jordan (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), We’re On: A June Jordan Reader (Alice James Books, 2017), Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), Kissing God Goodbye: Poems, 1991-1997 (Anchor Books, 1997), Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989), Living Room: New Poems (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1985), Passion: New Poems, 1977–1980 (Beacon Press, 1980), and Things That I Do in the Dark: Selected Poetry (Random House, 1977).
Jordan also authored children’s books, plays, the memoir Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood(Basic/Civitas Books, 2000), and the novel His Own Where (Crowell, 1971), which was nominated for the National Book Award. Her collections of political essays include Affirmative Acts: Political Essays (Anchor Books, 1998) and On Call: Political Essays (South End Press, 1985).
Of her career, Toni Morrison writes, "I am talking about a span of forty years of tireless activism coupled with and fueled by flawless art." Jordan received a Rockefeller Foundation grant, the National Association of Black Journalists Award, and fellowships from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where she founded Poetry for the People. Jordan died of breast cancer on June 14, 2002, in Berkeley, California.
From https://poets.org/poet/june-jordan.
For more information about June Jordan:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Mona Eltahawy about Jordan, at 02:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-069-mona-eltahawy
Aja Monet about Jordan, at 02:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-050-aja-monet
David Ulin about Jordan, at 28:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-085-david-ulin
“Poetry is a Political Act”: https://www.colorlines.com/articles/poetry-political-act
“June Jordan”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/june-jordan
“June Jordan reads ‘Poem for a Young Poet’”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sN_4FB3ito
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On December 4, 1875, Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague. His parents placed him in military school with the desire that he become an officer—a position Rilke was not inclined to hold. With the help of his uncle, who realized that Rilke was a highly gifted child, Rilke left the military academy and entered a German preparatory school. By the time he enrolled in Charles University in Prague in 1895, he knew that he would pursue a literary career: he had already published his first volume of poetry, Leben und Lieder, the previous year. At the turn of 1895-1896, Rilke published his second collection, Larenopfer (Sacrifice to the Lares). A third collection, Traumgekrönt (Dream-Crowned) followed in 1896. That same year, Rilke decided to leave the university for Munich, Germany, and later made his first trip to Italy.
In 1897, Rilke went to Russia, a trip that would prove to be a milestone in Rilke's life, and which marked the true beginning of his early serious works. While there the young poet met Tolstoy, whose influence is seen in Das Buch vom lieben Gott und anderes (Stories of God), and Leonid Pasternak, the nine-year-old Boris's father. At Worpswede, where Rilke lived for a time, he met and married Clara Westhoff, who had been a pupil of Rodin. In 1902 he became the friend, and for a time the secretary, of Rodin, and it was during his twelve-year Paris residence that Rilke enjoyed his greatest poetic activity. His first great work, Das Stunden Buch (The Book of Hours), appeared in 1905, followed in 1907 by Neue Gedichte (New Poems) and Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge). Rilke would continue to travel throughout his lifetime; to Italy, Spain and Egypt among many other places, but Paris would serve as the geographic center of his life, where he first began to develop a new style of lyrical poetry, influenced by the visual arts.
When World War I broke out, Rilke was obliged to leave France and during the war he lived in Munich. In 1919, he went to Switzerland where he spent the last years of his life. It was here that he wrote his last two works, the Duino Elegies (1923) and the Sonnets to Orpheus (1923). He died of leukemia on December 29, 1926. At the time of his death his work was intensely admired by many leading European artists, but was almost unknown to the general reading public. His reputation has grown steadily since his death, and he has come to be universally regarded as a master of verse.
From https://poets.org/poet/rainer-maria-rilke.
For more information about Rainer Maria Rilke:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Joy Harjo about Rilke, at 0:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-153-joy-harjo
Rosanne Cash about Rilke, at 22:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
Meredith Monk about Rilke, at 09:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-meredith-monk-054
“Sonnets to Orpheus”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865477216/sonnets-to-orpheus
“Rainer Maria Rilke”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rainer-maria-rilke
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Wislawa Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923, in Bnin, a small town in Western Poland. Her family moved to Krakow in 1931 where she lived most of her life. Szymborska studied Polish literature and sociology at Jagellonian University from 1945 until 1948. While attending the university, she became involved in Krakow’s literary scene and first met and was influenced by Czeslaw Milosz. She began work at the literary review magazine Życie Literackie (Literary Life) in 1953, a job she held for nearly thirty years.
During her lifetime, Szymborska authored more than fifteen books of poetry. Her collections available in English include Monologue of a Dog (Harcourt, 2005); Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska (Norton, 2001); Poems, New and Collected, 1957-1997 (Harcourt, 1998); View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems(Harcourt, 1995); People on a Bridge (Forest, 1990); and Sounds, Feelings Thoughts: Seventy Poems(Princeton UP, 1981). She is also the author of Nonrequired Reading (Harcourt, 2002), a collection of prose pieces.
While the Polish history from World War II through Stalinism clearly informs her poetry, Szymborska was also a deeply personal poet who explored the large truths that exist in ordinary, everyday things. "Of course, life crosses politics," Szymborska once said "but my poems are strictly not political. They are more about people and life." In 1996, Szymborska won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her other awards include the Polish Pen Club prize, an Honorary Doctorate from Adam Mickiewicz University, the Herder Prize and The Goethe Prize. Wislawa Szymborska died on February 1, 2012, at the age of eighty-eight.
From https://poets.org/poet/wislawa-szymborska.
For more information about Wisława Szymborska:
“Vermeer”: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/08/19/vermeer/
“The Milkmaid” by Vermeer: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-2344
“Wisława Szymborska”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wisaawa-szymborska
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E.O. Wilson, in full Edward Osborne Wilson, (born June 10, 1929, Birmingham, Ala., U.S.—died Dec. 26, 2021, Burlington, Mass.), was a U.S. biologist. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he taught from 1956. Recognized as the world’s leading authority on ants, he discovered their use of pheromones for communication. His The Insect Societies (1971) was the definitive treatment of the subject. In 1975 he published Sociobiology, a highly controversial and influential study of the genetic basis of social behavior in which he claimed that even a characteristic such as unselfish generosity may be genetically based and may have evolved through natural selection, that preservation of the gene rather than the individual is the focus of evolutionary strategy, and that the essentially biological principles on which animal societies are based apply also to human social behavior. In On Human Nature (1978, Pulitzer Prize) he explored sociobiology’s implications in regard to human aggression, sexuality, and ethics. With Bert Hölldobler he wrote the major study The Ants (1990, Pulitzer Prize). In The Diversity of Life (1992) he examined how the world’s species became diverse and the massive extinctions caused by 20th-century human activities. In Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998) he proposed that all of existence can be organized and understood in accordance with a few fundamental natural laws. Wilson’s other books included The Social Conquest of Earth (2012) and Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016). Naturalist (1994) is an autobiography.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Edward-O-Wilson.
For more information about E.O. Wilson:
“E.O. Wilson - Of Ants and Men”: https://www.pbs.org/video/eo-wilson-ants-and-men-full-episode/
“The Social Conquest of Earth”: https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Social-Conquest-of-Earth/
“E.O. Wilson, a Pioneer of Evolutionary Biology, Dies at 92”: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/science/eo-wilson-dead.html
Photo by Sage Ross: https://flic.kr/p/3txCqE
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Albert Camus, (born Nov. 7, 1913, Mondovi, Alg.—died Jan. 4, 1960, near Sens, France), was an Algerian-French novelist, essayist, and playwright. Born into a working-class family, Camus graduated from the university in Algiers and then worked with a theatrical company, becoming associated with leftist causes. He spent the war years in Paris, and the French Resistance brought him into the circle of Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism. He became a leading literary figure with his enigmatic first novel, The Stranger (1942), a study of 20th-century alienation, and the philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), an analysis of contemporary nihilism and the concept of the absurd. The Plague (1947), his allegorical second novel, and “The Rebel” (1951), another long essay, developed related issues. Other major works include the short-story collection Exile and the Kingdom (1957) and the posthumous autobiographical novel The First Man (1994). His plays include Le Malentendu (1944) and Caligula (1944). Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He died in a car accident.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Albert-Camus.
For more information about Albert Camus:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Abraham Verghese about Camus, at 26:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-071-abraham-verghese
Edwidge Danticat about Camus, at 11:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-018-edwidge-danticat
Victor Brombert about Camus, at 11:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-034-victor-brombert
Nathalie Etoke about Camus, at 04:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-176-nathalie-etoke
“Albert Camus”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/
“Albert Camus”: https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/albert-camus/
“Camus and the Political Tests of a Pandemic”: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/camus-and-the-political-tests-of-a-pandemic
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Émile Zola, (born April 2, 1840, Paris, France—died Sept. 28, 1902, Paris), was a French novelist and critic. Raised in straitened circumstances, Zola worked at a Paris publishing house for several years during the 1860s while establishing himself as a writer. In the gruesome novel Thérèse Raquin (1867), he put his “scientific” theories of the determination of character by heredity and environment into practice for the first time. These ideas established him as the founder of naturalism in literature. In 1870 he began the ambitious project for which he is best known, the Rougon-Macquart Cycle (1871–93), a sequence of 20 novels documenting French life through the lives of the violent Rougon family and the passive Macquarts. It includes L’Assommoir (1877), a study of alcoholism that is among his most successful and popular novels; Nana (1880); Germinal (1885), his masterpiece; and La Bête humaine (1890). Among his other works are two shorter novel cycles and treatises explaining his theories on art, including The Experimental Novel (1880). He is also notable for his involvement in the Alfred Dreyfus affair, especially for his open letter, “J’accuse” (1898), denouncing the French army general staff. He died under suspicious circumstances, overcome by carbon-monoxide fumes in his sleep.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Emile-Zola.
For more information about Émile Zola:
Nana: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/261203/nana-by-emile-zola/
“The Best of Émile Zola”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/21/1000-novels-emile-zola-classics
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Samuel Beckett, (born April 13?, 1906, Foxrock, Co. Dublin, Ire.—died Dec. 22, 1989, Paris, France), was an Irish playwright. After studying in Ireland and traveling, he settled in Paris in 1937. During World War II he supported himself as a farmworker and joined the underground resistance. In the postwar years he wrote, in French, the narrative trilogy Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951), and The Unnamable (1953). His play Waiting for Godot (1952) was an immediate success in Paris and gained worldwide acclaim when he translated it into English. Marked by minimal plot and action, existentialist ideas, and humor, it typifies the Theatre of the Absurd. His later plays, also sparsely staged, abstract works that deal with the mystery and despair of human existence, include Endgame (1957), Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days (1961). In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Samuel-Beckett.
For more information about Samuel Beckett:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Helen Drutt English about Beckett, at 11:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-140-helen-drutt-graham
“Samuel Beckett”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/samuel-beckett
“Molloy”: https://groveatlantic.com/book/molloy/
“Samuel Beckett, the maestro of failure”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/jul/07/samuel-beckett-the-maestro-of-failure
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Mary Shelley is an English novelist whose work has reached all corners of the globe. Author of Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), Shelley was the daughter of the radical philosopher William Godwin, who described her as ‘singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind’. Her mother, who died days after her birth, was the famous defender of women’s rights, Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary grew up with five semi-related siblings in Godwin’s unconventional but intellectually electric household.
At the age of 16, Mary eloped to Italy with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who praised ‘the irresistible wildness & sublimity of her feelings’. Each encouraged the other’s writing, and they married in 1816 after the suicide of Shelley’s wife. They had several children, of whom only one survived. A ghost-writing contest on a stormy June night in 1816 inspired Frankenstein, often called the first true work of science-fiction. Superficially a Gothic novel, influenced by the experiments of Luigi Galvani, it was concerned with the destructive nature of power when allied to wealth.
Familiar to scholars, librarians and the entire literary world, the novel tells the story of Doctor Victor Frankenstein and a creature he creates in an unorthodox scientific experiment. It was an instant wonder and spawned a mythology all of its own that endures to this day. After Percy Shelley’s death in 1822, she returned to London and pursued a very successful writing career as a novelist, biographer and travel writer. She also edited and promoted her husband’s poems and other writings.
From https://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley.
For more information about Mary Shelley:
“Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley
“The Strange and Twisted Life of ‘Frankenstein’”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-strange-and-twisted-life-of-frankenstein
“Frankenstein at 200”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/13/frankenstein-at-200-why-hasnt-mary-shelley-been-given-the-respect-she-deserves-
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John Donne was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets, a term created by Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher. The loosely associated group also includes George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, and John Cleveland. The Metaphysical Poets are known for their ability to startle the reader and coax new perspective through paradoxical images, subtle argument, inventive syntax, and imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an extended metaphor known as a conceit. Donne reached beyond the rational and hierarchical structures of the seventeenth century with his exacting and ingenious conceits, advancing the exploratory spirit of his time.
Donne entered the world during a period of theological and political unrest for both England and France; a Protestant massacre occurred on Saint Bartholomew's day in France; while in England, the Catholics were the persecuted minority. Born into a Roman Catholic family, Donne's personal relationship with religion was tumultuous and passionate, and at the center of much of his poetry. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities in his early teen years. He did not take a degree at either school, because to do so would have meant subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles, the doctrine that defined Anglicanism. At age twenty he studied law at Lincoln's Inn. Two years later he succumbed to religious pressure and joined the Anglican Church after his younger brother, convicted for his Catholic loyalties, died in prison. Donne wrote most of his love lyrics, erotic verse, and some sacred poems in the 1590s, creating two major volumes of work: Satires and Songs and Sonnets.
In 1598, after returning from a two-year naval expedition against Spain, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. While sitting in Queen Elizabeth's last Parliament in 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, the sixteen-year-old niece of Lady Egerton. Donne's father-in-law disapproved of the marriage. As punishment, he did not provide a dowry for the couple and had Donne briefly imprisoned.
This left the couple isolated and dependent on friends, relatives, and patrons. Donne suffered social and financial instability in the years following his marriage, exacerbated by the birth of many children. He continued to write and published the Divine Poems in 1607. In Pseudo-Martyr, published in 1610, Donne displayed his extensive knowledge of the laws of the Church and state, arguing that Roman Catholics could support James I without compromising their faith. In 1615, James I pressured him to enter the Anglican Ministry by declaring that Donne could not be employed outside of the Church. He was appointed Royal Chaplain later that year. His wife died in 1617 at thirty-three years old shortly after giving birth to their twelfth child, who was stillborn. The Holy Sonnetsare also attributed to this phase of his life.
In 1621, he became dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral. In his later years, Donne's writing reflected his fear of his inevitable death. He wrote his private prayers, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, during a period of severe illness and published them in 1624. His learned, charismatic, and inventive preaching made him a highly influential presence in London. Best known for his vivacious, compelling style and thorough examination of mortal paradox, John Donne died in London on March 31, 1631.
From https://poets.org/poet/john-donne.
For more information about John Donne:
“Devotions Upon Social Isolation”: https://www.berfrois.com/2020/06/ed-simon-john-donne-social-isolation/
“John Donne”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne
“No Man Is An Island”: https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html
“Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/04/100-best-nonfiction-books-no-96-john-donne-devotions-emergent-occasions
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Milan Kundera is the author of the novels The Joke, Farewell Waltz, Life Is Elsewhere, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Immortality, and the short-story collection Laughable Loves—all originally written in Czech. His most recent novels Slowness, Identity, and Ignorance, as well as his nonfiction works The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, The Curtain, and Encounter, were originally written in French.
From https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/milan-kundera-20154134342990.
For more information about Milan Kundera:
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-book-of-laughter-and-forgetting-milan-kundera?variant=32117649342498
“Milan Kundera, The Art of Fiction No. 81”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2977/the-art-of-fiction-no-81-milan-kundera
“Why Read Milan Kundera?”: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/04/16/milan-kundera
Photo by Elisa Cabot: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/76540627@N03/7454633294
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Edward Young, (baptized July 3, 1683, Upham, Hampshire, Eng.—died April 5, 1765, Welwyn, Hertfordshire), was an English poet, dramatist, and literary critic, author of The Complaint: or, Night Thoughts (1742–45), a long, didactic poem on death. The poem was inspired by the successive deaths of his stepdaughter, in 1736; her husband, in 1740; and Young’s wife, in 1741. The poem is a blank-verse dramatic monologue of nearly 10,000 lines, divided into nine parts, or “Nights.” It was enormously popular.
Young’s fame in Europe, particularly in Germany, was augmented by a prose work, the Conjectures on Original Composition (1759), addressed to his friend Samuel Richardson. It sums up succinctly and forcefully many strains of thought later regarded as Romantic.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Young.
For more information about Edward Young:
“Love of Fame, The Universal Passion”: http://www.public-domain-poetry.com/edward-young/love-of-fame-the-universal-passion-in-seven-characteristical-satires-34598
“Night Thoughts”: https://brooklynrail.org/2005/11/poetry/night-thoughts
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Homer, (flourished 9th or 8th century BCE, Ionia?), was an ancient Greek poet and presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Though almost nothing is known of his life, tradition holds that Homer was blind. The ancient Greeks attributed to him the great epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. Modern scholars generally agree that he composed (but was not the original creator of) the Iliad, most likely relying on oral traditions, and at least inspired the composition of the Odyssey.
The Iliad, set during the Trojan War, tells the story of the wrath of Achilles. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus as he travels home from the war. The two epics provided the basis of Greek education and culture in the Classical age, and they have remained among the most significant poems of the European tradition. The method of their composition has been long debated.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Homer-Greek-poet.
For more information about Homer:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Homer, at 14:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
“Homer”: https://poets.org/poet/homer
Iliad: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D6
Introduction to The Iliad: https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/9780226470498_Lattimore_intro.pdf
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Born in California on September 21, 1945, Kay Ryan grew up in the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. She received both a bachelor's and master's degree from UCLA. Ryan has published several collections of poetry, including The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (Grove Press, 2010), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2011; The Niagara River (2005); Say Uncle (2000); Elephant Rocks (1996); Flamingo Watching (1994), which was a finalist for both the Lamont Poetry Selection and the Lenore Marshall Prize; Strangely Marked Metal (1985); and Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends(1983).
Ryan's awards include a National Humanities Medal, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Union League Poetry Prize, the Maurice English Poetry Award, and three Pushcart Prizes. Her work has been selected four times for The Best American Poetry and was included in The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997.
Ryan's poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, The Yale Review, Paris Review, The American Scholar, The Threepenny Review, Parnassus, among other journals and anthologies. She was named to the “It List” by Entertainment Weekly and one of her poems has been permanently installed at New York’s Central Park Zoo. Ryan was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006. In 2008, Ryan was appointed the Library of Congress's sixteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County in California.
From https://poets.org/poet/kay-ryan.
For more information about Kay Ryan:
“Winter Fear”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=40728
“Kay Ryan”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kay-ryan
“Kay Ryan, The Art of Poetry No. 94”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5889/the-art-of-poetry-no-94-kay-ryan
Photo by Jennifer Loring.
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One of France’s most important literary figures, Marguerite Duras is best known in the United States for her novel The Lover, and for her brilliant film script Hiroshima, Mon Amour. She is also the author of many other acclaimed novels (The Ravishing of Lol Stein) and screenplays (Détruire, dit-elle). Born in Saigon in 1914 and died in Paris in 1996.
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/7646/marguerite-duras/.
For more information about Marguerite Duras:
The Lover: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/44171/the-lover-by-marguerite-duras/
“The Lives and Loves of Marguerite Duras”: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/20/magazine/the-life-and-loves-of-marguerite-duras.html
“On a Pedestal: Duras’s ‘The Lover’ Turns 30”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/04/27/on-a-pedestal/
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Naveen Kishore is the founder and managing director of Seagull Books - a publishing house located in Calcutta, India, which began primarily as a response to the growing need for an Indian publishing house focused on theatre and other arts. Seagull Books has translated just about more foreign literature than any other major publishing house in the world. He was the recipient of the Goethe Medal and the Chevalier Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Kishore lives and works in Calcutta.
For more information about Naveen Kishore:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Naveen Kishore on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-007-naveen-kishore
Annie Zaidi with guest host Naveen Kishore: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-179-naveen-kishore-and-annie-zaidi
Knotted Grief: https://speakingtigerbooks.com/product/knotted-grief/
“Seagull at 40 is about affirming the word: Naveen Kishore”: https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/people/seagull-at-40-is-about-affirming-the-word-naveen-kishore/cid/1834964
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Charles Darwin, (born Feb. 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Eng.—died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent), was a British naturalist. The grandson of Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and biology at Cambridge. He was recommended as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, which was bound on a long scientific survey expedition to South America and the South Seas (1831–36). His zoological and geological discoveries on the voyage resulted in numerous important publications and formed the basis of his theories of evolution. Seeing competition between individuals of a single species, he recognized that within a local population the individual bird, for example, with the sharper beak might have a better chance to survive and reproduce and that if such traits were passed on to new generations, they would be predominant in future populations. He saw this natural selection as the mechanism by which advantageous variations were passed on to later generations and less advantageous traits gradually disappeared. He worked on his theory for more than 20 years before publishing it in his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). The book was immediately in great demand, and Darwin’s intensely controversial theory was accepted quickly in most scientific circles; most opposition came from religious leaders. Though Darwin’s ideas were modified by later developments in genetics and molecular biology, his work remains central to modern evolutionary theory. His many other important works included Variation in Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868) and The Descent of Man… (1871). He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Charles-Darwin.
For more information about Charles Darwin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Isabella Rossellini about Darwin, at 09:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-083-isabella-rossellini
Merve Emre about Darwin, at 20:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-170-merve-emre
Moshe Safdie about Darwin, at 14:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-102-moshe-safdie
“The Evolution of Charles Darwin”: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-evolution-of-charles-darwin-110234034/
“The Darwin Collection”: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/library-and-archives/collections/darwin-collection.html
“How Darwin Evolved: 25,540 Paper Fragments Tell the Story”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/arts/design/charles-darwin-research-notes-hackers-project.html
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François VI, duke de La Rochefoucauld, (born Sept. 15, 1613, Paris, France—died March 16/17, 1680, Paris), was a French writer. Of a noble family, he joined the army at an early age and was wounded several times. He later played a leading part in the Fronde but gradually won his way back into royal favor. He turned his energies to intellectual pursuits and became the leading exponent of the maxime, a French form of epigram that concisely expresses a harsh or paradoxical truth. Maximes (five eds., 1665–78), his principal achievement, consists of 500 reflections on human behavior. His Mémoires (1664) recount the plots and campaigns of mutinous nobles during the Fronde.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Francois-VI-duke-de-La-Rochefoucauld.
For more information about La Rochefoucauld:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Lynette Wallworth about La Rochefoucauld, at 05:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-017-lynette-wallworth
“PHILOSOPHY - La Rochefoucauld”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CEvFA7laik
“Alain de Botton on La Rochefoucauld”: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/alain-de-botton-on-la-rochefoucauld/
Maxims: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/261048/maxims-by-la-rochefoucauld/
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Maggie Nelson was born in 1973 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received a BA from Wesleyan University in 1994 and a PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2004. She is the author of the poetry collections Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007), Jane: A Murder (Soft Skull Press, 2005), The Latest Winter (Hanging Loose Press, 2003), and Shiner (Hanging Loose Press, 2001).
Nelson has also published several works of lyrical prose, including The Argonauts(Graywolf Press, 2015), which received the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and Bluets (Wave Books, 2009). Of Bluets, the poet Rob Schlegel writes, “The result not only defies easy categorization, but also leans toward Walter Benjamin’s famous declaration that all great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one.”
Nelson has also received fellowships from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. She currently teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner, the artist Harry Dodge.
From https://poets.org/poet/maggie-nelson.
For more information about Maggie Nelson:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Maggie Nelson on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-048-maggie-nelson
Danielle Spencer about Nelson, at 10:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-172-danielle-spencer
“Maggie Nelson”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maggie-nelson
Bluets: https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/bluets
“An Interview with Maggie Nelson”: https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-maggie-nelson/
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Demosthenes, (born 384 BCE, Athens [Greece]—died Oct. 12, 322, Calauria, Argolis), was an Athenian statesman, recognized as the greatest of ancient Greek orators, who roused Athens to oppose Philip of Macedon and, later, his son Alexander the Great. His speeches provide valuable information on the political, social, and economic life of 4th-century Athens.
For almost 30 years Demosthenes rallied the citizens of Athens to oppose the military power of Philip of Macedon and Philip’s son Alexander the Great. Demosthenes’ speech “On the Crown,” the defense of his career delivered in 330, has been termed “the greatest speech of the greatest orator in the world.” In the century following his death, the scholars at the Library of Alexandria carefully edited the manuscripts of his famous speeches. His fame was such that, when the Roman orator Cicero delivered a series of speeches in 44 BCE opposing Mark Antony, in circumstances not unlike those in which Demosthenes opposed Philip, Cicero’s speeches were called Philippics too. Roman schoolboys studied Demosthenes’ speeches as part of their own oratorical training. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, his name was a synonym for eloquence. Modern scholars such as Werner Jaeger present a more dispassionate view by pointing to the highly complex political issues that Demosthenes handled with his oratorical skill. Whatever the interpretation of his personality and work, he has in every age been regarded as one of the world’s greatest orator-statesmen.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Demosthenes-Greek-statesman-and-orator.
For more information about Demosthenes:
“Demosthenes, Third Olynthiac”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0070:speech=3:section=19
“Third Olynthiac”: https://cmuntz.hosted.uark.edu/texts/demosthenes/3-third-olynthiac.html
“The Greek Orators, Demosthenes”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0075:chapter=9
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Michael Ondaatje, in full Philip Michael Ondaatje, (born September 12, 1943, Colombo, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka]), is a Canadian novelist and poet whose musical prose and poetry were created from a blend of myth, history, jazz, memoirs, and other forms. Ondaatje immigrated to Montreal when he was 19 and received a B.A. in English from the University of Toronto in 1965 and an M.A. from Queen’s University in 1967. His first collection of poetry, The Dainty Monsters (1967), is a series of lyrics that juxtapose everyday life with mythology. It was praised for its unique blend of primitive and domestic imagery. Ondaatje’s fascination with the lore of the American West led to one of his most celebrated works, the 1970 pastiche The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Handed Poems. Often called a parable of the artist as outlaw, the work contains poems, prose, photographs, interviews, and even comic books, which combined create a meditation on the nature of heroism and violence. His collection titled Secular Love(1984) contains poetry about the breakup of his marriage. His other poetry collections include The Cinnamon Peeler (1989) and Handwriting: Poems (1998).
Ondaatje’s prose works, better known than his poetry, included Coming Through Slaughter (1976), a novel about the descent into insanity of the New Orleans jazz musician Buddy Bolden; Running in the Family (1982), his memoirs about life in Ceylon; and In the Skin of a Lion (1987), a novel about the clash between rich and poor in early 20th-century Toronto. Two characters from this novel, Hana and Caravaggio, also appear in The English Patient (1992; film 1996), which takes place in an Italian villa that is being used as a hospital during World War II. Noted for the richly described interior lives of its characters, The English Patient was cowinner of the Booker Prize in 1992. Subsequent novels included Anil’s Ghost (2000), set in Sri Lanka amid the political violence of the 1980s and ’90s, and Divisadero (2007). The Cat’s Table (2011)—its title referencing the table farthest from the captain’s table on a cruise ship—chronicles a voyage from Sri Lanka to England in the 1950s from the perspective of an 11-year-old boy and his two comrades. In Warlight (2018) a teenage boy and his sister are left with two mysterious men when their parents move to Singapore after World War II.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Ondaatje.
For more information about Michael Ondaatje:
“Michael Ondaatje”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-ondaatje
The English Patient: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/124597/the-english-patient-by-michael-ondaatje-introduction-by-pico-iyer/
“Michael Ondaatje: By the Book”: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/books/review/michael-ondaatje-by-the-book.html
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Luis Buñuel, (born Feb. 22, 1900, Calanda, Spain—died July 29, 1983, Mexico City, Mex.), was a Spanish film director. As a student at the University of Madrid he met Salvador Dalí, with whom he later made the Surrealist film Un chien andalou(1928). Buñuel then directed the anticlerical L’Âge d’or (1930) and the documentary Land Without Bread (1932). After working as a commercial producer in Spain and a technical adviser in Hollywood, he moved to Mexico, where he directed Los olvidados (1950) and Nazarín (1958). He returned to Spain to make Viridiana(1961), which was suppressed in Spain as anticlerical but internationally acclaimed. He attacked conventional morality in such later films as Belle de jour (1967), Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Luis-Bunuel.
For more information about Luis Buñuel:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Salman Rushdie about Buñuel, at 10:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-168-salman-rushdie
Elif Shafak about Buñuel, at 23:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-025-elif-shafak
Derek DelGaudio about Buñuel, at 05:28: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-078-derek-delgaudio
“Luis Buñuel: Eternal Surrealist”: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6767-luis-bu-uel-eternal-surrealist
“Six Definitive Films: The ultimate beginner’s guide to Luis Buñuel”: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/luis-bunuel-guide-six-best-films/
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Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, and Everything Inside. She is also the editor of The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2. She has written seven books for children and young adults, Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama's Nightingale, Untwine, My Mommy Medicine, as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is a 2009 MacArthur fellow, a 2018 Ford Foundation “The Art of Change” fellow, and the winner of the 2018 Neustadt International Prize and the 2019 St. Louis Literary Award.
From https://edwidgedanticat.com/about.
For more information about Edwidge Danticat:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edwidge Danticat on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-018-edwidge-danticat
James McBride about Danticat, at 14:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-092-james-mcbride
Ibram X. Kendi about Danticat, at 13:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-087-ibram-x-kendi
Create Dangerously: https://edwidgedanticat.com/non-fiction#/books/create-dangerously
“It Wants to Be Told: An Interview with Edwidge Danticat”: https://kenyonreview.org/2019/10/it-wants-to-be-told-an-interview-with-edwidge-danticat/
“An Interview, Edwidge Danticat”: https://www.bkreview.org/fall-2018/an-interview-with-edwidge-danticat/
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Chris Marker was a French photographer and filmmaker known for his mysterious films La Jetée (1962) and Sans Soleil (1982). Marker’s films are noted for being almost entirely made up of montaged still photographs. “I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining,” he once said. “We do not remember. We rewrite memory much as history is rewritten.” Born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, little is known of Marker’s life and even his place of birth is contested, with the artist himself once suggesting he was born in Mongolia. Marker went on to study philosophy before the outbreak of World War II, at which time he joined the French Resistance. After the war, the artist worked as journalist and photographer for the Marxist publication Espirit. He spent much of the 1950s working as a photojournalist while also becoming friends with French filmmakers Alain Resnais and Agnès Varda. Over the following decades, Marker was actively involved in the Vietnam War protests, pro-communist activism, and late in his career, computer generated art. The artist died on July 29, 2012 in Paris, France.
From http://www.artnet.com/artists/chris-marker/.
For more information about Chris Marker:
“Chris Marker: Memory’s Apostle”: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/498-chris-marker-memory-s-apostle
“In Memoriam: Chris Marker”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/in-memoriam-chris-marker
“Marker Direct: an interview with Chris Marker”: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/marker-direct-an-interview-with-chris-marker/
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Anatole France, pseudonym of Jacques-Anatole-François Thibault, (born April 16, 1844, Paris, France—died Oct. 12, 1924, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire), was a writer and ironic, skeptical, and urbane critic who was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was elected to the French Academy in 1896 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. The son of a bookseller, he spent most of his life around books. At school he received the foundations of a solid humanist culture and decided to devote his life to literature. His first poems were influenced by the Parnassian revival of classical tradition, and, though scarcely original, they revealed a sensitive stylist who was already cynical about human institutions.
This ideological skepticism appeared in his early stories: Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), a novel about a philologist in love with his books and bewildered by everyday life; La Rôtisserie de la Reine Pédauque (1893; At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque), which discreetly mocks belief in the occult; and Les Opinions de Jérome Coignard (1893), in which an ironic and perspicacious critic examines the great institutions of the state. His personal life underwent considerable turmoil. His marriage in 1877 to Marie-Valérie Guérin de Sauville ended in divorce in 1893. He had met Madame Arman de Caillavet in 1888, and their liaison inspired his novels Thaïs (1890), a tale set in Egypt of a courtesan who becomes a saint, and Le Lys rouge (1894; The Red Lily), a love story set in Florence.
A marked change in France’s work first appears in four volumes collected under the title L’Histoire contemporaine (1897–1901). The first three volumes—L’Orme du mail (1897; The Elm-Tree on the Mall), Le Mannequin d’osier (1897; The Wicker Work Woman), and L’Anneau d’améthyste (1899; The Amethyst Ring)—depict the intrigues of a provincial town. The last volume, Monsieur Bergeret à Paris (1901; Monsieur Bergeret in Paris), concerns the participation of the hero, who had formerly held himself aloof from political strife, in the Alfred Dreyfus affair. This work is the story of Anatole France himself, who was diverted from his role of an armchair philosopher and detached observer of life by his commitment to support Dreyfus. After 1900 he introduced his social preoccupations into most of his stories. Crainquebille (1903), a comedy in three acts adapted by France from an earlier short story, dramatizes the unjust treatment of a small tradesman and proclaims the hostility toward the bourgeois order that led France eventually to embrace socialism. Toward the end of his life, his sympathies were drawn to communism. However, Les Dieux ont soif (1912; The Gods are Athirst) and L’Île des Pingouins(1908; Penguin Island) show little belief in the ultimate arrival of a fraternal society. World War I reinforced his profound pessimism and led him to seek refuge from his times in childhood reminiscences. Le Petit Pierre (1918; Little Pierre) and La Vie en fleur (1922; The Bloom of Life) complete the cycle started in Le Livre de mon ami(1885; My Friend’s Book).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anatole-France.
For more information about Anatole France:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sven Birkerts about France, at 07:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-181-sven-bikerts
Alex Vitale about France, at 04:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-131-alex-vitale
“Anatole France”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1921/france/biographical/
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Mowlānā Jalāloddin Balkhi, known in Persia as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī and in the West as Rumi, was born on September 30, 1207 C. E. in Balkh Province, Afghanistan, on the eastern edge of the Persian Empire. Rumi descended from a long line of Islamic jurists, theologians, and mystics, including his father, who was known by followers of Rumi as "Sultan of the Scholars." When Rumi was still a young man, his father led their family more than 2,000 miles west to avoid the invasion of Genghis Khan's armies. They settled in present-day Turkey, where Rumi lived and wrote most of his life.
As a teenager, Rumi was recognized as a great spirit by the poet and teacher Fariduddin Attar, who gave him a copy of his own Ilahinama (The Book of God). When his father died in 1231, Rumi became head of the madrasah, or spiritual learning community. Rumi's oldest son, Sultan Velad, managed to save 147 of Rumi's intimate letters, which provide insights about the poet and how he lived. Rumi often involved himself in the lives of his community members, solving disputes and facilitating loans between nobles and students. The letters are described as having lines of poetry scattered throughout.
In 1244, Rumi met Shams Tabriz, who had taken a vow of poverty. Their meeting is considered a central event in Rumi's life, and Rumi believed his real poetry began when he met Shams. They were close friends for about four years. Over the course of that time, Shams was repeatedly driven away by Rumi's jealous disciples, including one of Rumi's sons, Ala al-Din. In December of 1248, Shams again disappeared; it is believed that he was either driven away or killed. Rumi left the madrasah in search of his friend, traveling to Damascus and elsewhere. Eventually, Rumi made peace with his loss, returning to his home. Rumi's mourning for the loss of his friend led to the outpouring of more than 40,000 lyric verses, including odes, eulogies, quatrains, and other styles of Eastern-Islamic poetry. The resulting collection, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi or The Works of Shams Tabriz, is considered one of Rumi's masterpieces and one of the greatest works of Persian literature.
For the last twelve years of his life, beginning in 1262, Rumi dictated a single, six-volume poem to his scribe, Husam Chelebi. The resulting masterwork, the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi(Spiritual Verses), consists of sixty-four thousand lines, and is considered Rumi's most personal work of spiritual teaching. Rumi described the Masnavi as "the roots of the roots of the roots of the (Islamic) Religion," and the text has come to be regarded by some Sufis as the Persian-language Koran.
Rumi fell ill and died on December 17, 1273 C. E., in Konya, Turkey. His remains were interred adjacent to his father's, and the Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb) was erected above their final resting place. Now the Mevlâna museum, the site includes a mosque, dance hall, and dervish living quarters. Thousands of visitors, of all faiths, visit his tomb each month, honoring the poet of legendary spiritual understanding.
From https://poets.org/poet/jalal-al-din-rumi.
For more information about Rumi:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Natasha Trethewey about Rumi, at 07:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-145-natasha-trethewey
“Jalal al-Din Rumi”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jalal-al-din-rumi
“How Did Rumi Become One of Our Best-Selling Poets?”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/books/review/rumi-brad-gooch.html
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Marcus Aurelius , in full Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustusorig. Marcus Annius Verus, (born April 26, AD 121, Rome—died March 17, 180, Vindobona [Vienna] or Sirmium, Pannonia), was a Roman emperor (161–180). He was born into a wealthy and prominent family. Hadrian arranged that Marcus and Lucius Verus be adopted by the designated future emperor Antoninus Pius, who dutifully groomed Marcus as his heir. On his accession, Marcus nevertheless shared power with his adoptive brother as coemperor, though he himself remained the more dominant. His reign was marked by numerous military crises, all the major frontiers being threatened by invasion. Struggles against the Parthians (162–166) were successful, but returning troops brought a devastating plague to Rome. With a concurrent German invasion, Roman morale declined; the Germans were repulsed, but Verus died during the campaign (169). Marcus made his son Commodus coemperor in 177. Though a man of gentle character and wide learning, Marcus opposed Christianity and supported persecution of its adherents. His Meditations on Stoicism, considered one of the great books of all times, gives a full picture of his religious and moral values. His reign is often thought to mark the Golden Age of Rome.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Marcus-Aurelius-Roman-emperor.
For more information about Marcus Aurelius:
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, trans. Robin Hard: https://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199573202.book.1/actrade-9780199573202-book-1
“Marcus Aurelius”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/
A Companion to Marcus Aurelius: https://www.wiley.com/en-ie/A+Companion+to+Marcus+Aurelius-p-9781405192859
The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674007079
Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Philosophy+as+a+Way+of+Life%3A+Spiritual+Exercises+from+Socrates+to+Foucault-p-9780631180333
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
For this very special Quotomania debut of Ian Boyden’s unpublished poem “Assay,” Boyden shared a short statement on the work:
“I’m so delighted you are going to read my poem ‘Assay’ as part of your Quotomania project. It might seem strange, but in an important way, this is precisely how I want this poem to enter the world—delivered by the voice of someone other than myself (and yet not an Other). And that it is your voice, a voice I have come to love so much, that makes it even better.
“Why do I feel this way? This poem is a record of an experience, that of the gradual breakdown of the “illusory self” that somehow forms as we grow, perhaps in the way a hard crust grows on lava as it cools. The generation of the illusory self is a response to some external condition. And somehow in this process a separation occurs, as if part of us were trapped to one side of the crust, and the other part to the other. I don’t know if there is a singular reason for this. But a theory I am fond of is that our conscious mind is somehow captured by language, this sense of ‘I’ made rigid by the insistence of language itself. And with ‘I’ comes ‘non-I.’ Thus, the mentality of ‘we-they’ is born. The Other.
“Think about this, Paul, language might be a separate temperature from who we fundamentally are. When we expose ourselves to this extraordinary tool of communication, it changes our state of matter. What was transparent might become opaque, what was liquid might become solid. Great eruptions of steam and fog. Calcium carbonate precipitates to form some dense shell. And somehow consciousness separates. And then it begins to perceive our world as through the lens of separation.
“You asked me to suggest quotations, and here is one from Sam Hamill in this regard that I love. It comes from his essay ‘The Necessity to Speak’:
Nothing will change until we demolish the ‘we-they’ mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal.
“Many years ago, I had a profound experience in which the boundary between myself and my environment shattered. I saw quite clearly that I was not separate from my environment. That, in fact, I was my environment, that we are our environment. What we do to our environment, we do to ourselves. And this revelation has been at the heart of my work for the last decade or more. And at the same time, this revelation also illuminated a similar internal illusion, an illusory I that is somehow separate from who we fundamentally are. What is our fundamental self or fundamental disposition?
“There is a famous Zen koan that speaks to the importance, really the revelatory quality of knowing that fundamental disposition. When the seven century Zen master Hongren declared Huineng his dharma heir, it created an intense controversy among the monks at his temple. Some of them were so angry that they wanted to kill Huineng, causing Huineng to flee for his life. One of Hongren’s other disciples, a head monk named Ming, pursued Huineng and finally caught up with him in the mountains. In a life-or-death situation, Huineng asked Ming this question: ‘Without thinking of right, without thinking of wrong, at this very moment, what is your original disposition?’ Disposition is a wonderful word in Chinese meaning literally ‘face and eyes.’ Upon being asked this question, head monk Ming experiences a massive opening, recognizes Huineng as the rightful dharma heir and lets him go on his way. And Huineng’s question has become a question asked of every student of Zen ever since.
“What is your original disposition? It is such a severe question. That original disposition of the flowing lava before the blinding crust. What is your fundamental nature? How do you penetrate the crust to see it? How do you go about knowing that? It seems to defy all logical structures. So, this poem documents an aspect of my experience in that search.
“And this brings me to the title ‘Assay.’ This can be either a verb or a noun. I prefer the title be understood as a verb, though I also have no intention of limiting it to one or another. It means to test the quality of a metal, and by extension to assess the nature of a given thing. When I was a child, I identified with Hephaestus, I loved that he lived in a volcano forging metal, I even wrote my first book about him at age 7 or 8. And later, I even moved to Sicily where I climbed Mount Etna, Hephaestus’ home! And then later, I worked in a bronze foundry, where I performed assays many times. So I felt this word fit perfectly with my own cosmology. But then I began to feel unease, because Jane Hirshfield, who is one of my favorite poets and who I count as a dear friend, has used this word in the title of a great number of her poems, a kind of formula: {X}: An Assay. So, I wrote to her, asking her if she would mind, and she wrote back a lovely note, saying, ‘you more than have my blessing, didn’t need my blessing, but I still appreciate you inquiring, because I might, after all, have felt otherwise.’”
Bio:
Ian Boyden—artist, writer, translator, and curator—investigates relationships between the self and the environment, in particular how art and writing can shape our ecology. Consistent across his productions are his interests in material relevance and place-based thought, as well as a deep awareness of East Asian philosophies and aesthetics. He studied for many years in China and Japan, and holds degrees in the History of Art from Wesleyan University and Yale University. In recent years, he has worked extensively with Chinese dissidents, including artist Ai Weiwei and poet Tsering Woeser. He is the recipient of a Literary Translation Fellowship from the NEA to translate the work of Woeser. He is the author of A Forest of Names: 108 Meditations (Wesleyan University Press, 2020), and his artist books, paintings, and sculptures are found in many public collections including Reed College, Stanford University, the Portland Art Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
From www.ianboyden.com.
For more information about Ian Boyden:
“‘Eradicate the Self’ Self Portrait”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYCJVLVHrF0
A Forest of Names: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819579959/a-forest-of-names/
“A Landscape of Dignity: A Conversation with Ai Weiwei and Ian Boyden”: https://www.raintaxi.com/a-landscape-of-dignity-a-conversation-with-ai-weiwei-and-ian-boyden/
“The Nature of Names: A Conversation with Ian Boyden”: https://theadroitjournal.org/2020/09/24/the-nature-of-names-a-conversation-with-ian-boyden/
Translations of “Assay”:
Swedish translation by Charlotta Smeds:
Skärskåda
I åratal hamrade jag
på en vägg runt mitt hjärta
och när den äntligen rasade
fann jag att varelsen inom mig
var densamma
som höll i hammaren
hela tiden
—Ian Boyden
Italian translation by Charlotta Smeds:
Scrutare
Per anni ho preso a martellate
il muro attorno al mio cuore
e quando alla fine è crollato
ho trovato che l'essere al suo interno
era lo stesso
che aveva tenuto il martello
per tutto il tempo
—Ian Boyden
Chinese translation by Danhong Tang:
證顯
多年來我錘打著
一堵環繞我心的牆
當它終於碎崩時
我發現裡面的眾生
與那個握著錘子的生物
一直是一樣的
—Ian Boyden
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Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, was a master’s student at Boston University when she met Plath’s father, Otto Plath, who was her professor. They were married in January of 1932. Otto taught both German and biology, with a focus on apiology, the study of bees. In 1940, when Plath was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically defined Plath's relationships and her poems—most notably in her elegiac and infamous poem "Daddy."
Plath kept a journal from the age of eleven and published her poems in regional magazines and newspapers. Her first national publication was in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950, just after graduating from high school. In 1950, Plath matriculated at Smith College, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1955. After graduation, Plath moved to Cambridge, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. In early 1956, she attended a party and met the English poet Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956.
Plath returned to Massachusetts in 1957 and began studying with Robert Lowell. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960 in England, and two years later in the United States. She returned to England, where she gave birth to her children Frieda and Nicholas, in 1960 and 1962, respectively. In 1962, Ted Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. That winter, Plath wrote most of the poems that would comprise her most famous book, Ariel. In 1963, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. She died on February 11 of that year.
Plath’s poetry is often associated with the Confessional movement, and compared to the work of poets such as Lowell and fellow student Anne Sexton. Often, her work is singled out for the intense coupling of its violent or disturbed imagery and its playful use of alliteration and rhyme.
Although only Colossus was published while she was alive, Plath was a prolific poet, and in addition to Ariel, Hughes published three other volumes of her work posthumously, including The Collected Poems, which was the recipient of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize. She was the first poet to posthumously win a Pulitzer Prize.
From https://poets.org/poet/sylvia-plath.
For more information about Sylvia Plath:
“Sylvia Plath”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath
“The Letters of Sylvia Plath”: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-letters-of-sylvia-plath-volume-1-sylvia-plath?variant=32207178170402
“Sylvia Plath, a Postwar Poet Unafraid to Confront Her Own Despair”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-sylvia-plath.html
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Mark Twain, orig. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, (born Nov. 30, 1835, Florida, Mo., U.S.—died April 21, 1910, Redding, Conn.), was a U.S. humorist, writer, and lecturer. He grew up in Hannibal, Mo., on the Mississippi River and was apprenticed in 1848 to a local printer. He received a riverboat pilot’s license in 1859 and later moved on to Nevada and California. In 1863 he took his pseudonym, the riverman’s term for water 2 fathoms (12 ft [3.7 m]) deep. In a California mining camp he heard the story that he first published in 1865 and made famous as the title story of his first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches (1867). He traveled widely, using his travels as subject matter for lectures and books, from the humorous narratives The Innocents Abroad (1869) and Roughing It (1872) to Life on the Mississippi (1883), his reflections on being a riverboat captain. He won a worldwide audience for his adventure stories of boyhood, especially Tom Sawyer(1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1885), one of the masterpieces of American fiction. The satirical A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) and increasingly grim works including Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) and The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg (1899) followed. In the 1890s financial speculations bankrupted him. His eldest daughter died in 1896, his wife in 1904, and another daughter in 1909. He expressed his pessimism about human character in such late works as the posthumously published Letters from the Earth (1962).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Mark-Twain.
For more information about Mark Twain:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Andy Borowitz about Twain, at 19:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-152-andy-borowitz
Margaret Atwood about Twain, at 20:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-055-margaret-atwood
“About Mark Twain”: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/mark-twain/about-twain/
“A Life Lived in a Rapidly Changing World: Samuel L. Clemens, 1835-1910”: https://marktwainhouse.org/about/mark-twain/biography/
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Born Meta Ann Doak in Pittsburgh, poet and writer Annie Dillard earned a BA and an MA at Hollins College. Influenced by Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, Dillard writes compressed, lyric poetry and prose that engages the balance of daily life within the frame of literature and ideas. In a 2007 review of The Maytrees for the Washington Post, Marilynne Robinson observes, “Annie Dillard's books are like comets, like celestial events that remind us that the reality we inhabit is itself a celestial event, the business of eons and galaxies, however persistently we mistake its local manifestations for mere dust, mere sea, mere self, mere thought. The beauty and obsession of her work are always the integration of being, at the grandest scales of our knowledge of it, with the intimate and momentary sense of life lived.”
Dillard’s numerous books include the poetry collections Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974) and Mornings Like This: Found Poems (1995); the nonfiction books Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), winner of a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award finalist An American Childhood (1987), For the Time Being (1999), and The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New (2016); and the novels The Living (1992) and The Maytrees (2007). She edited the anthologies Best American Essays 1988 and Modern American Memoirs (1996, coedited with Cort Conley).
A member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Dillard also holds honorary doctorates at Boston College, the University of Hartford, and Connecticut College. Additional honors include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, a New York Press Club Award for Excellence, an Appalachian Gold Medallion, a Campion Award, and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in 2014.
Professor emeritus at Wesleyan University, she lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and Wythe County, Virginia. A selection of her papers is archived at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/annie-dillard.
For more information about Annie Dillard:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edwidge Danticat about Dillard, at 14:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-018-edwidge-danticat
The Writing Life: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-writing-life-annie-dillard?variant=32117558214690
“How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives: Annie Dillard on Choosing Presence Over Productivity”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/06/07/annie-dillard-the-writing-life-1/
“Contemplating the Infinite with Annie Dillard”: https://lithub.com/contemplating-the-infinite-with-annie-dillard/
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Hesiod (flourished c. 700 BC) was a Greek poet. One of the earliest Greek poets, he is often called the father of Greek didactic poetry. A native of Boeotia, in central Greece, he may have been a professional reciter of poetry. Two complete epics have survived: the Theogony, relating stories of the gods, and the Works and Days, describing peasant life and expressing his views on the proper conduct of men. His works reveal his essentially serious outlook on life and portray a less glamorous world than Homer’s. His poems won renown during his lifetime, and the power of his name was such that epics by others were later attributed to him.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Hesiod.
For more information about Hesiod and the Theogony:
“Theogony”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130
“Hesiod and the Ancient Biographical Traditions”: https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/gregory-nagy-hesiod-and-the-ancient-biographical-traditions/
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Blaise Pascal, (born June 19, 1623, Clermont-Ferrand, France—died Aug. 19, 1662, Paris), was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. The son of a mathematician, he was a child prodigy, earning the envy of René Descartes with an essay he wrote on conic sections in 1640. In the 1640s and ’50s he made contributions to physics (formulating Pascal’s law) and mathematics (working on the arithmetic triangle, inventing a calculating machine, and contributing to the advance of differential calculus). For work done in his early years, he is regarded as the founder of the modern theory of probability. At the same time, he became increasingly involved with Jansenism. Les Provinciales were a series of letters defending Jansenism and attacking the Jesuits. His great work of Christian apologetics, Apologie de la religion chrétienne, was never finished, but he put together most of his notes and fragments between 1657 and 1658; these were published posthumously as Pensées (1670). He returned to scientific work, contributing to the Élements de géométrie and publishing his findings on cycloid curves, but he soon returned to devotional life and spent his last years helping the poor. The pascal was named in his honor.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Blaise-Pascal.
For more information about Blaise Pascal:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Simon Critchley about Pascal, at 20:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-008-simon-critchley
Victor Brombert about Pascal, at 07:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-034-victor-brombert
Walter Mosley about Pascal, at 07:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-084-walter-mosley
Maggie Nelson about Pascal, at 27:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-048-maggie-nelson
“Blaise Pascal”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal/
“Blaise Pascal on the Intuitive vs. the Logical Mind and How We Come to Know Truth”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/06/19/blaise-pascal-intuition-intellect-pensees/
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Democritus, known in antiquity as the ‘laughing philosopher’ because of his emphasis on the value of ‘cheerfulness,’ was one of the two founders of ancient atomist theory. He elaborated a system originated by his teacher Leucippus into a materialist account of the natural world. The atomists held that there are smallest indivisible bodies from which everything else is composed, and that these move about in an infinite void. Of the ancient materialist accounts of the natural world which did not rely on some kind of teleology or purpose to account for the apparent order and regularity found in the world, atomism was the most influential. Even its chief critic, Aristotle, praised Democritus for arguing from sound considerations appropriate to natural philosophy.
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democritus/.
For more information about the anonymous epitaph for Democritus:
“Everything is Laughter in The End”: https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2017/06/07/everything-is-laughter-in-the-end-an-epitaph/
“Democritus”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democritus/
“What’s so funny, Democritus?”: https://www.artstor.org/2016/04/21/whats-so-funny-democritus/
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Daniel Defoe, orig. Daniel Foe, (born 1660, London, Eng.—died April 24, 1731, London), was a British novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist. A well-educated London merchant, he became an acute economic theorist and began to write eloquent, witty, often audacious tracts on public affairs. A satire he published resulted in his being imprisoned in 1703, and his business collapsed. He traveled as a government secret agent while continuing to write prolifically. In 1704–13 he wrote practically single-handedly the periodical Review, a serious and forceful paper that influenced later essay periodicals such as The Spectator. His Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 3 vol. (1724–26), followed several trips to Scotland. Late in life he turned to fiction. He achieved literary immortality with the novel Robinson Crusoe(1719), which drew partly on memoirs of voyagers and castaways. He is also remembered for the vivid, picaresque Moll Flanders (1722); the nonfictional Journal of the Plague Year (1722), on the Great Plague in London in 1664–65; and Roxana (1724), a prototype of the modern novel.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Daniel-Defoe.
For more information about Daniel Defoe:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Nicholson Baker about Defoe, at 07:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-160-nicholson-baker
Werner Herzog about Defoe, at 17:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-002-werner-herzog
“Daniel Defoe”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/daniel-defoe
“A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/38621/a-journal-of-the-plague-year-by-daniel-defoe/
“What the Great Pandemic Novels Teach Us”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-orhan-pamuk.html
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Born in New York City on July 9, 1936, June Jordan attended Barnard College. She was an activist, poet, writer, teacher, and prominent figure in the civil rights, feminist, antiwar, and LGBTQ movements of the twentieth century.
Her numerous books of poetry include The Essential June Jordan (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), We’re On: A June Jordan Reader (Alice James Books, 2017), Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), Kissing God Goodbye: Poems, 1991-1997 (Anchor Books, 1997), Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989), Living Room: New Poems (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1985), Passion: New Poems, 1977–1980 (Beacon Press, 1980), and Things That I Do in the Dark: Selected Poetry (Random House, 1977).
Jordan also authored children’s books, plays, the memoir Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood (Basic/Civitas Books, 2000), and the novel His Own Where (Crowell, 1971), which was nominated for the National Book Award. Her collections of political essays include Affirmative Acts: Political Essays (Anchor Books, 1998) and On Call: Political Essays (South End Press, 1985).
Of her career, Toni Morrison writes, "I am talking about a span of forty years of tireless activism coupled with and fueled by flawless art." Jordan received a Rockefeller Foundation grant, the National Association of Black Journalists Award, and fellowships from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where she founded Poetry for the People. Jordan died of breast cancer on June 14, 2002, in Berkeley, California.
From https://poets.org/poet/june-jordan.
For more information about June Jordan:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Mona Eltahawy about Jordan, at 02:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-069-mona-eltahawy
Aja Monet about Jordan, at 02:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-050-aja-monet
David Ulin about Jordan, at 28:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-085-david-ulin
“June Jordan”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/june-jordan
“A June Jordan Portfolio”: http://www.junejordan.net/a-june-jordan-portfolio.html
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Poet, essayist, and thinker Paul Ambroise Valéry was born in the Mediterranean town of Séte, France, on October 30, 1871. He attended the lycée at Montpellier and studied law at the University of Montpellier. Valéry left school early to move to Paris and pursue a life as a poet. In Paris, he was a regular member of Stéphane Mallarmé's Tuesday evening salons. It was at this time that he began to publish poems in avant-garde journals.
In 1892, while visiting relatives in Genoa, Valéry underwent a stark personal transformation. During a violent thunderstorm, he determined that he must free himself "at no matter what cost, from those falsehoods: literature and sentiment." He devoted the next twenty years to studying mathematics, philosophy, and language. From 1892 until 1912, he wrote no poetry. He did begin, however, to keep his ideas and notes in a series of journals, which were published in twenty-nine volumes in 1945. He also wrote essays and the book La Soirée avec M. Teste (The Evening with Monsieur Teste, 1896).
Valéry supported himself during this period first with a job in the War Department, and then as a secretary at the Havas newspaper agency. This job required him to work only a few hours per day, and he spent the rest of his time pursuing his own ideas. He married Jeannie Gobillard in 1900, and they had one son and one daughter. In 1912 Andre Gide persuaded Valéry to collect and revise his earlier poems. In 1917 Valéry published La Jeune Parque (The Young Fate), a dramatic monologue of over five-hundred lines, and in 1920 he published Album de vers anciens, 1890-1920 (Album of Old Verses). His second collection of poetry, Charmes (Charms) appeared in 1922. Despite tremendous critical and popular acclaim, Valéry again put aside writing poetry. In 1925 he was elected to the Académe Francaise. He spent the remaining twenty years of his life on frequent lecture tours in and out of France, and he wrote numerous essays on poetry, painting, and dance. Paul Valéry died in Paris in July of 1945 and was given a state funeral.
From https://poets.org/poet/paul-valery.
For more information about Paul Valéry:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Jorie Graham about Valéry, at 31:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-139-jorie-graham
Maggie Nelson about Valéry, at 16:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-048-maggie-nelson
“Paul Valéry”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-valery
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Doris Lessing was born in Kermanshah, Persia (now Iran). Her father was a bank clerk and her mother a nurse. Her family later moved to Southern Rhodesia in 1925. Doris Lessing attended a convent school and a girls' school, but ended her studies at age 14 and moved from home. She went on to work as a nursemaid, telephonist, stenographer, and journalist, and published a few short stories. Lessing moved to London in 1949. She became involved in politics and social issues and actively took part in the campaign against nuclear weapons. Doris Lessing was married twice and had three children.
Doris Lessing's body of work comprises around 50 books and spans several genres. Her writing is characterized by penetrating studies of living conditions in the 20th century, behavioral patterns, and historical developments. Her most experimental novel, The Golden Notebook, from 1962, is a study of a woman's psyche and life situation, the lot of writers, sexuality, political ideas, and everyday life. Some of Doris Lessing's books reach into the future. Among other things, she portrays our civilization's final hour from the perspective of an extraterrestrial observer.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2007/lessing/facts/.
For more information about Doris Lessing:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elif Shafak about Lessing, at 11:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-025-elif-shafak
“Doris Lessing Interview”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2007/lessing/interview/
“Doris Lessing, Author Who Swept Aside Convention”: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/books/doris-lessing-novelist-who-won-2007-nobel-is-dead-at-94.html
Photo by Elke Wetzig.
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A preeminent figure in British psychoanalysis, Donald Winnicott is recognised internationally for his contributions to the understanding of psychological development, from infancy to maturity. He was both pediatrician and psychoanalyst and used the experience gained from each discipline to inform his practice in the other. As a pediatrician he had the opportunity to study normal psychological growth and development from the earliest moments of life onward in many thousands of mother/baby couples. Together with the understanding of psychopathology that he gained from his psychoanalytic practice he developed a unique capacity to understand the difficulties of both adults and children when they arose, traveling with them and guiding them towards resolution. A natural communicator, he wrote for many audiences, professional and lay, and also became well-known for his many BBC broadcasts on matters to do with children’s care and welfare: his term ‘good-enough mother’ continues to find a place there (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018qf36 ). He is probably best-known for his work on the importance of play, and “Transitional Objects” – his term for the special blanket or soft toy inseparable from the infant or toddler, and also for his use of the “Squiggle Game” to catch the attention and engage with his child patients.
From http://squiggle-foundation.org/winnicott/biography/.
For more information about Donald Winnicott:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sherry Turkle about Winnicott, at 20:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-070-sherry-turkle
“The Importance of Hide-and-Seek”: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/the-importance-of-hide-and-seek/
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Georgia O’Keeffe, (born Nov. 15, 1887, near Sun Prairie, Wis., U.S.—died March 6, 1986, Santa Fe, N.M.) was a U.S. painter. She studied art in Chicago and New York City, where she met and married the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. By the early 1920s, her highly individualistic painting style had emerged, as typified by such works as Black Iris (1926). Her subjects were often enlarged views of the skulls and other bones of animals, flowers and plant organs, shells, rocks, mountains, and other natural forms. Her mysteriously suggestive images of bones and flowers set against a perspectiveless space have inspired a variety of erotic, psychological, and symbolic interpretations. Her later works celebrate the clear skies and desert landscapes of New Mexico, where she moved after her husband’s death in 1946. She is regarded by critics as one of the most original and important American artists, and her works are highly popular among the general public.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Georgia-OKeeffe.
For more information about Georgia O’Keeffe:
“Georgia O’Keeffe”: https://okeeffemuseum.libguides.com/guides/okeeffe
“Georgia O’Keeffe Stays True to Her Vision”: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/georgia-okeeffe-stays-true-to-her-vision-andy-warhol
“Georgia O’Keeffe Collections”: https://collections.okeeffemuseum.org
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Aristotle (born 384 BCE, Stagira—died 322 BCE, Chalcis) was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist whose thought determined the course of Western intellectual history for two millennia. He was the son of the court physician to Amyntas III, grandfather of Alexander the Great. In 367 he became a student at the Academy of Plato in Athens; he remained there for 20 years. After Plato’s death in 348/347, he returned to Macedonia, where he became tutor to the young Alexander. In 335 he founded his own school in Athens, the Lyceum. His intellectual range was vast, covering most of the sciences and many of the arts.
Aristotle worked in physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, and botany; in psychology, political theory, and ethics; in logic and metaphysics; and in history, literary theory, and rhetoric. He invented the study of formal logic, devising for it a finished system, known as syllogistic, that was considered the sum of the discipline until the 19th century; his work in zoology, both observational and theoretical, also was not surpassed until the 19th century. His ethical and political theory, especially his conception of the ethical virtues and of human flourishing (“happiness”), continue to exert influence in philosophical debate. He wrote prolifically; his major surviving works include the Organon, De Anima (“On the Soul”), Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Magna Moralia, Politics, Rhetoric, and Poetics, as well as other works on natural history and science.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Aristotle.
For more information about Aristotle:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Simon Critchley about Aristotle, at 12:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-008-simon-critchley
Garnette Cadogan about Aristotle, at 04:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-101-garnette-cadogan
“Lives of Eminent Philosophers” by Diogenes Laertius: https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL184/1925/volume.xml
“Aristotle”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/
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Born on the island of Saint Lucia, a former British colony in the West Indies, poet and playwright Derek Walcott was trained as a painter but turned to writing as a young man. He published his first poem in the local newspaper at the age of 14. Five years later, he borrowed $200 to print his first collection, 25 Poems, which he distributed on street corners. Walcott’s major breakthrough came with the collection In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 (1962), a book which celebrates the Caribbean and its history as well as investigates the scars of colonialism. Throughout a long and distinguished career, Walcott returned to those same themes of language, power, and place. His later collections include Tiepolo’s Hound (2000), The Prodigal (2004), Selected Poems (2007), White Egrets (2010), and Morning, Paramin (2016). In 1992, Walcott won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel committee described his work as “a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.”
Since the 1950s Walcott divided his time between Boston, New York, and Saint Lucia. His work resonates with Western canon and Island influences, shifting between Caribbean patois and English, and often addressing his English and West Indian ancestry. Many readers and critics point to Omeros (1990), an epic poem reimagining the Trojan War as a Caribbean fishermen’s fight, as Walcott’s major achievement. Walcott was also a renowned playwright. In 1971 he won an Obie Award for his play Dream on Monkey Mountain, which the New Yorker described as “a poem in dramatic form.” Walcott’s plays generally treat aspects of the West Indian experience, often dealing with the socio-political and epistemological implications of post-colonialism and drawing upon various genres such as the fable, allegory, folk, and morality play. With his twin brother, he cofounded the Trinidad Theater Workshop in 1950; in 1981, while teaching at Boston University, he founded the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. He also taught at Columbia University, Yale University, Rutgers University, and Essex University in England.
In addition to his Nobel Prize, Walcott’s honors included a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, and, in 1988, the Queen’s Medal for Poetry. He was an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He died in 2017.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/derek-walcott.
For more information about Derek Walcott:
“Sea Grapes”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57111/sea-grapes
“Derek Walcott, The Art of Poetry No. 37”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2719/the-art-of-poetry-no-37-derek-walcott
“Derek Walcott Reads His Poem Sea Grapes”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOlbD_Gawis
“Kwame Dawes Reads Derek Walcott”: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/poetry/kwame-dawes-reads-derek-walcott
Photo by Jorge Mejía Peralta: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mejiaperalta/6883969411/
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Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her work has been supported most recently by a Guggenheim Fellowship. She grew up in Sonoma, California and now lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she writes, teaches remotely, and hosts the critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Her new book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in May 2022.
From https://www.adalimon.net/about.
For more information about Ada Limón:
“Ada Limón Reads ‘Joint Custody’”: https://www.facebook.com/slowdownshow/videos/ada-limón-reads-joint-custody/904942623716601/
The Hurting Kind: https://milkweed.org/book/the-hurting-kind
“Poet Ada Limón on making work that matters”: https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/ada-limon-on-being-a-gateway-drug-for-poetry/
Photo by Lucas Marquardt.
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Miguel de Cervantes, (born Sept. 29?, 1547, Alcalá de Henares, Spain—died April 22, 1616, Madrid), was a Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet, the most celebrated figure in Spanish literature. After studying in Madrid, Cervantes joined the Italian infantry, fought the Turks at Lepanto, and was captured with his brother and sold into slavery in Algiers for five years. Back in Spain, his chronic financial problems and tangled affairs led to brushes with the law and brief imprisonment. While in tedious civil-service employment, he wrote the pastoral romance La Galatea (1585) and plays, poetry, and short stories, to small success. His marvelous creation Don Quixote (1605, 1615), brought immediate success and literary eminence, if not riches. It parodies chivalric romances of the day with the comic adventures of a bemused elderly knight who sets out on his old horse, Rosinante, with his pragmatic squire, Sancho Panza. Often considered the first and certainly one of the great novels, it has influenced many writers and inspired numerous creations in other genres and media. Cervantes also published a large set of eight comedies and eight interludes for the stage (1615) and the romance The Labors of Persiles and Sigismunda (1617).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Miguel-de-Cervantes.
For more information about Miguel de Cervantes:
“The remarkable life of Miguel de Cervantes and how it shaped his timeless tale, ‘Don Quixote’”: https://hub.jhu.edu/2016/09/29/egginton-cervantes-29sept2016/
“The Downside to Digging Up Cervantes”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-downside-to-digging-up-cervantes
“In Exile with ‘Don Quixote’”: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/books/review/in-exile-with-don-quixote.html
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Jean-Luc Godard, (born Dec. 3, 1930, Paris, France), is a French Swiss film director. He wrote film criticism for the influential journal Cahiers du cinéma before impressing audiences with his first feature film, the improvisatory and original Breathless (1960), which established him as the apostle of the New Wave. He continued to explore new techniques in films such as My Life to Live (1962), Pierrot le fou (1965), Alphaville(1965), and Weekend (1968), using the camera creatively to express political commentary. He returned to themes of more universal concern with Every Man for Himself (1979) and Passion (1982) but stirred controversy with his updated Nativity story in Hail Mary! (1985). He received wide critical acclaim for Histoire(s) du Cinéma(1997), a video study of French film, and In Praise of Love (2001). Later films were the experimental collage Film Socialism (2010), the fragmented narrative Goodbye to Language (2014), and the cinematic essay The Image Book (2018).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Jean-Luc-Godard.
For more information about Jean-Luc Godard:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Wayne Koestenbaum about Godard, at 05:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-166-wayne-koestenbaum
Salman Rushdie about Godard, at 02:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-168-salman-rushdie
Godard on Godard: https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/jean-luc-godard/godard-on-godard/9780306802591/
“New Again: Jean-Luc Godard”: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/new-again-jean-luc-godard
“Jean-Luc Godard in conversation with C S Venkiteswaran”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwquFZlitTU
Photo by Gary Stevens: https://www.flickr.com/photos/garysoup/3196585607/
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Though poet and essayist Mary Ruefle was born outside Pittsburgh, she spent her youth moving around the United States and Europe with her military family. She has published over a dozen books of poetry, including Dunce (2019), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, My Private Property (2016), Indeed I Was Pleased with the World (2007), and The Adamant (1989), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize. She is also the author of the essay collection Madness, Rack, and Honey (2012) and the work of fiction The Most of It (2008). A Little White Shadow (2006), her book of erasures—found texts in which all but a few words have been erased from the page—reveals what Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called “haiku-like minifables, sideways aphorisms, and hauntingly perplexing koans.” Ruefle's erasures are available to view on her website; a full-color facsimile of her erasure Incarnation of Now was published in a limited edition by See Double Press.
Ruefle’s free-verse poetry is at once funny and dark, domestic and wild. Reviewing Post Meridian (2000), critic Lisa Beskin of the Boston Review observed, “Like John Ashbery and James Tate, Mary Ruefle investigates the multiplicities and frailties of being with an associative inventiveness and a lightness of touch; the purposefulness of her enquiry never eclipses the remarkable beauty of her work.”
Ruefle earned a BA from Bennington College. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as a Whiting Writers’ Award, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, Great American Prose Poems (2003), American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006), and The Next American Essay (2002). Ruefle has taught at Vermont College and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Vermont.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-ruefle.
For more information about Mary Ruefle:
My Private Property by Mary Ruefle: https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/my-private-property
“Becoming Invisible: An Interview with Mary Ruefle”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/12/12/becoming-invisible-an-interview-with-mary-ruefle/
“Mary Ruefle”: https://www.maryruefle.com
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Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh was a global spiritual leader, poet, and peace activist, revered throughout the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace. His key teaching was that, through mindfulness, we can learn to live happily in the present moment—the only way to truly develop peace, both in one’s self and in the world. Thich Nhat Hanh published over 100 titles on meditation, mindfulness, and engaged Buddhism, as well as poems, children’s stories, and commentaries on ancient Buddhist texts. He sold over five million books in the United States alone. Some of his best-known volumes include Being Peace, Peace Is Every Step, The Miracle of Mindfulness, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, and The Art of Living.
Thich Nhat Hanh was a pioneer in bringing Buddhism to the West, founding six monasteries and dozens of practice centers in the United States, Asia, and Europe, as well as over 1,000 local mindfulness practice communities, known as ‘sanghas.’ He built a thriving community of over 600 monks and nuns worldwide, who, together with his tens of thousands of lay students, apply his teachings on mindfulness, peace-making, and community-building in schools, workplaces, businesses – and even prisons – throughout the world. Thich Nhat Hanh was a gentle, humble monk – the man Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “an Apostle of peace and nonviolence” when nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the media he has also been called “The Father of Mindfulness,” “The Other Dalai Lama” and “The Zen Master Who Fills Stadiums.” Thich Nhat Hanh died on January 22, 2022 at the age of 95.
From https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/thich-nhat-hanh.
For more information about Thich Nhat Hanh:
“Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh”: https://www.lionsroar.com/bell-hooks-and-thich-nhat-hanh-on-building-a-community-of-love/
“The Friendship of Martin Luther King Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh”: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/martin-luther-king-thich-nhat-hanh/
“Thich Nhat Hanh, Monk, Zen Master and Activist, Dies at 95”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/world/asia/thich-nhat-hanh-dead.html
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Thucydides , (born c. 460—died c. 404 BC), was the greatest of ancient Greek historians. An Athenian who commanded a fleet in the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides failed to prevent the capture of the important city of Amphipolis and consequently was exiled for 20 years. During that period he wrote his History of the Peloponnesian War; evidently he did not live to complete it, for it stops abruptly in 411 BC. It presents the first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation’s war policies, treating the causes of the conflict, the characters of the two states, and the technical aspects of warfare in a carefully drawn, strictly chronological narrative of events, including some in which he took an active part.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Thucydides-Greek-historian.
For more information about Thucydides:
“Thucydides: Pericles’ Funeral Oration”: http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/education/thucydides.html
“Ancient History Sourcebook: Thucydides”: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/pericles-funeralspeech.asp
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Born near St. Louis, Missouri, on November 15, 1887, Marianne Moore was raised in the home of her grandfather, a Presbyterian pastor. After her grandfather’s death, in 1894, Moore and her family stayed with other relatives, and in 1896 they moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She attended Bryn Mawr College and received her BA in 1909. Following graduation, Moore studied typing at Carlisle Commercial College, and from 1911 to 1915 she was employed as a school teacher at the Carlisle Indian School. In 1918, Moore and her mother moved to New York City, and in 1921, she became an assistant at the New York Public Library. She began to meet other poets, such as William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens, and to contribute to the Dial, a prestigious literary magazine. She served as acting editor of the Dial from 1925 to 1929. Along with the work of such other members of the Imagist movement as Ezra Pound, Williams, and H. D., Moore’s poems were published in The Egoist, an English magazine, beginning in 1915. In 1921, H. D. published Moore’s first book, Poems (The Egoist Press, 1921), without her knowledge.
Moore was widely recognized for her work; among her many honors were the Bollingen prize, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. She wrote with the freedom characteristic of the other modernist poets, often incorporating quotes from other sources into the text, yet her use of language was always extraordinarily condensed and precise, capable of suggesting a variety of ideas and associations within a single, compact image. In his 1925 essay “Marianne Moore,” William Carlos Williams wrote about Moore’s signature mode, the vastness of the particular: “So that in looking at some apparently small object, one feels the swirl of great events.” She was particularly fond of animals, and much of her imagery is drawn from the natural world. She was also a great fan of professional baseball and an admirer of Muhammed Ali, for whom she wrote the liner notes to his record, I Am the Greatest! Deeply attached to her mother, she lived with her until Mrs. Moore’s death in 1947. Marianne Moore died in New York City on February 5, 1972.
From https://poets.org/poet/marianne-moore.
For more information about Marianne Moore:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Samantha Rose Hill about Marianne Moore, at 17:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-171-samantha-rose-hill
Vivek Murthy about Marianne Moore, at 06:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-127-vivek-murthy
Melody Wainscott about Marianne Moore, at 24:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-009-melody-wainscott
“Silence”: https://poets.org/poem/silence-2
“Marianne Moore”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marianne-moore
“The Marianne Moore Revival”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-marianne-moore-revival
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Robert Altman, (born Feb. 20, 1925, Kansas City, Mo., U.S.—died Nov. 20, 2006, Los Angeles, Calif.), U.S. film director. He learned filmmaking by directing industrial films, then directed several television series before making his first feature film, Countdown (1967). The successful antiwar comedy MASH (1970) established his reputation as an independent director whose work emphasizes character and atmosphere over plot. His most acclaimed films include McCabe and Mrs. Miller(1971), Nashville (1976), The Player (1992), Short Cuts (1993), and Gosford Park* (2001).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Robert-Altman.
For more information about Robert Altman:
“Robert Altman: the genius who ‘reinvented the language of cinema’”: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/19/robert-altman-genius-who-reinvented-language-of-cinema
“Robert Altman Interview: ‘If I made a film that everybody liked it would be pretty terrible’”: https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/robert-altman-interview
“What ‘MAS*H’ Taught Us”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-mash-taught-us
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Arthur Koestler, (born Sept. 5, 1905, Budapest, Hung. —found dead March 3, 1983, London, Eng.), was a Hungarian-born British novelist, journalist, and critic, best known for his novel Darkness at Noon (1940). Koestler attended the University of Vienna before entering journalism. Serving as a war correspondent for the British newspaper News Chronicle during the Spanish Civil War, Koestler was imprisoned by the fascists, an experience he recounted in Spanish Testament (1937). This experience and those leading to his break with the Communist Party are reflected in Darkness at Noon. Published in 30 languages, it is the penetrating story of an old-guard Bolshevik who, during Stalin’s purge trials of the 1930s, first denies, then confesses to, crimes that he has not committed. Specifically dealing with the plight of an aging revolutionary who can no longer condone the excesses of the government he helped put in power, the novel is an examination of the moral danger inherent in a system that sacrifices means to an end. Koestler’s other works of this period, during which he wrote most of his fiction, include The Gladiators (1939), a novel about the revolt against Rome led by the gladiator Spartacus; and Arrival and Departure (1943). These books deal with similar questions of morality and political responsibility.
Koestler’s essays are collected in The Yogi and the Commissar and Other Essays (1945) and in The God That Failed (1949; ed. R. Crossman), in which he wrote of his disillusionment with communism. From 1940 Koestler wrote in English. He became a British citizen in 1948. His last political novel, The Age of Longing (1951), examined the dilemma of Europe after World War II. Koestler took stock of his early life in the memoirs Arrow in the Blue (1952) and The Invisible Writing (1954). His later works were concerned with science, creativity, and mysticism. The Act of Creation (1964), perhaps the best-known book of his scientific and philosophical period, attempts to explain the processes underlying creativity in science and art. Other works of this period include The Lotus and the Robot (1960), an examination of Eastern mysticism; The Ghost in the Machine (1967), which discusses the effect of evolution on the structure of the human brain; and The Thirteenth Tribe (1976), a controversial study of the origins of the Jewish people. Bricks to Babel, a collection of his writings with new commentary by the author, appeared in 1981. In his later years, Koestler suffered from leukemia and Parkinson’s disease. Believers in voluntary euthanasia, he and his wife Cynthia took their own lives.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arthur-Koestler.
For more information about Arthur Koestler:
“Arthur Koestler, the Art of Fiction No. 80”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2976/the-art-of-fiction-no-80-arthur-koestler
“Road Warrior: Arthur Koestler and His Century”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/12/21/road-warrior
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Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and German Literature in Munich and Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature- and documentary films, such as Aguirre der Zorn Gottes (AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, 1972), Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht (NOSFERATU, 1978), FITZCARRALDO (1982), Lektionen in Finsternis (LESSONS OF DARKNESS, 1992), LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY (1997), Mein liebster Feind (MY BEST FIEND, 1999), INVINCIBLE (2000), GRIZZLY MAN (2005), ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2007), Die Höhle der vergessenen Träume (CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, 2010). Werner Herzog has published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas. Werner Herzog lives in Munich and Los Angeles.
From https://www.wernerherzog.com/#biography.
For more information about Werner Herzog:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Werner Herzog on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-002-werner-herzog
Johnny Temple about Herzog, at 02:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-167-johnny-temple
Jorie Graham about Herzog, at 03:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-139-jorie-graham
Simon Critchley about Herzog, at 15:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-008-simon-critchley
"Was the Twentieth Century a Mistake?”: https://brickmag.com/was-the-twentieth-century-a-mistake/
"Landscapes of the Soul": A Conversation at the Onassis Foundation (Stegi) in Athens, Greece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSeniqta-Mc
"Let Them Fact Check to Their Death": A Conversation at The Brooklyn Academy of Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QqOJUR6-eU
"Finding My Grandfather in Greece & How to Direct a Landscape”: A Conversation at The New York Public Library: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8vnFugiNeU
"On Wrestlemania and Anna Nicole Smith": A Conversation in London (Intelligence Squared) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kl2dFGshro
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Janis Joplin, (born Jan. 19, 1943, Port Arthur, Texas, U.S.—died Oct. 4, 1970, Los Angeles, Calif.), was a U.S. rock and blues singer. Born to a middle-class family, she ran away from home at age 17 and began singing in Austin, Texas, and later in Los Angeles. She joined the band Big Brother and the Holding Company in San Francisco in 1966 and soon became famous for her raw, powerful, emotional blues style. The album Cheap Thrills (1968) contains some of her best-known recordings. After leaving the band, she continued to record hit songs, including “Me and Bobby McGee.” She died from an overdose of heroin at age 27.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Janis-Joplin.
For more information about Janis Joplin:
“Me and Bobby McGee”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfjon-ZTqzU
“Janis Joplin”: https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/janis-joplin
“Janis Joplin: The Queen of Rock”: https://www.npr.org/2010/06/07/127483124/janis-joplin-the-queen-of-rock
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Harry Belafonte, orig. Harold George Belafonte, Jr., (born March 1, 1927, New York, N.Y., U.S.), was a U.S. singer, actor, and producer. He was born to immigrants from Martinique and Jamaica, and he lived with his mother in Jamaica from 1935 to 1940. In the early 1950s he initiated a fad for calypso music with songs such as “Day-O (Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell.” He starred in the films Carmen Jones(1954) and Island in the Sun (1957) and later became the first black television producer. In the 1960s and ’70s he was a prominent civil-rights activist. From the 1970s onward his singing career was a secondary occupation, and he acted in films such as Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Kansas City (1996).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Harry-Belafonte.
For more information about Harry Belafonte:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ramsess about Belafonte, at 13:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-118-ramsess
Sandra Jackson-Dumont about Belafonte, at 20:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-033-sandra-jackson-dumont
“Harry Belafonte and the Social Power of Song”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/harry-belafonte-and-the-social-power-of-song
“Six Decades After the Banana Boat, Harry Belafonte’s Archive Sails Home”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/arts/harry-belafonte-archives-schomburg.html
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Diogenes (born, Sinope, Paphlygonia—died c. 320 BCE, probably at Corinth, Greece), archetype of the Cynics, was a Greek philosophical sect that stressed stoic self-sufficiency and the rejection of luxury. He is credited by some with originating the Cynic way of life, but he himself acknowledges an indebtedness to Antisthenes, by whose numerous writings he was probably influenced. It was by personal example rather than any coherent system of thought that Diogenes conveyed the Cynic philosophy. His followers positioned themselves as watchdogs of morality.
Diogenes is the subject of numerous apocryphal stories, one of which depicts his behaviour upon being sold into slavery. He declared that his trade was that of governing men and was appointed tutor to his master’s sons. Tradition ascribes to him the famous search for an honest man conducted in broad daylight with a lighted lantern. Almost certainly forced into exile from Sinope with his father, he had probably already adopted his life of asceticism (Greek askesis,“training”) when he reached Athens. Referred to by Aristotle as a familiar figure there, Diogenes began practicing extreme anti-conventionalism. He made it his mission to “deface the currency,” perhaps meaning “to put false coin out of circulation.” That is, he sought to expose the falsity of most conventional standards and beliefs and to call men back to a simple, natural life.
For Diogenes the simple life meant not only disregard of luxury but also disregard of laws and customs of organized, and therefore “conventional,” communities. The family was viewed as an unnatural institution to be replaced by a natural state in which men and women would be promiscuous and children would be the common concern of all. Though Diogenes himself lived in poverty, slept in public buildings, and begged for his food, he did not insist that all men should live in the same way but merely intended to show that happiness and independence were possible even under reduced circumstances.
The program for life advocated by Diogenes began with self-sufficiency, or the ability to possess within oneself all that one needs for happiness. A second principle, “shamelessness,” signified the necessary disregard for those conventions holding that actions harmless in themselves may not be performed in every situation. To these Diogenes added “outspokenness,” an uncompromising zeal for exposing vice and conceit and stirring men to reform. Finally, moral excellence is to be obtained by methodical training, or asceticism. Among Diogenes’ lost writings are dialogues, plays, and the Republic, which described an anarchist utopia in which men lived “natural” lives.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diogenes-Greek-philosopher.
For more information about Diogenes the Cynic:
“Herakleitos and Diogenes: Translated from the Greek by Guy Davenport”: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/Herakleitos-and-DiogenesHerakleitos/1112054555?ean=9781725229426
“Nietzsche and the Cynics”: https://aeon.co/essays/what-nietzsche-learnt-from-diogenes-the-cynic
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Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. She was an author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist. She was best known for her seven autobiographical books: Mom & Me & Mom (Random House, 2013); Letter to My Daughter (Random House, 2008); All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (Random House, 1986); The Heart of a Woman (Random House, 1981); Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (Random House, 1976); Gather Together in My Name (Random House, 1974); and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Random House, 1969), which was nominated for the National Book Award.
Among her volumes of poetry are A Brave and Startling Truth (Random House, 1995); The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House, 1994); Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (Random House, 1993); I Shall Not Be Moved (Random House, 1990); Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? (Random House, 1983); Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well (Random House, 1975); and Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (Random House, 1971), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1961 to 1962 she was associate editor of The Arab Observer in Cairo, Egypt, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East, and from 1964 to 1966 she was feature editor of the African Review in Accra, Ghana. She returned to the United States in 1974 and was appointed by Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. She accepted a lifetime appointment in 1982 as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1993, Angelou wrote and delivered a poem, "On The Pulse of the Morning," at the inauguration for President Bill Clinton at his request. In 2000, she received the National Medal of Arts, and in 2010 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
The first black woman director in Hollywood, Angelou wrote, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries "Three Way Choice." She also wrote and produced several prize-winning documentaries, including "Afro-Americans in the Arts," a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. Angelou was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting: once for her Broadway debut in Look Away (1973), and again for her performance in Roots (1977). Angelou died on May 28, 2014, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she had served as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University since 1982. She was eighty-six.
From https://poets.org/poet/maya-angelou.
For more information about Maya Angelou:
“Maya Angelou”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maya-angelou
“Going Home with Maya Angelou”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY4w1qW1L6w
“Maya Angelou, the Art of Fiction No. 119”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2279/the-art-of-fiction-no-119-maya-angelou
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Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈhɛnɾɪk ˈɪpsən]; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as “the father of prose drama” and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder.
Several of his plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict mores of family life and propriety. Ibsen’s work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. The poetic and cinematic play Peer Gynt, however, has strong surreal elements. Ibsen is often ranked as one of the truly great playwrights in the European tradition. Richard Hornby describes him as “a profound poetic dramatist—the best since Shakespeare“. He influenced other playwrights and novelists such as George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and Eugene O’Neill. Many critics consider him the greatest playwright since Shakespeare.
Ibsen wrote his plays in Dano-Norwegian (the common written language of Denmark and Norway) and they were published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal. Although most of his plays are set in Norway—often in places reminiscent of Skien, the port town where he grew up—Ibsen lived for 27 years in Italy and Germany, and rarely visited Norway during his most productive years. Born into a merchant family connected to the patriciate of Skien, his dramas were shaped by his family background. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen.
From https://www.norwegianibsencompany.com/henrik-ibsen/.
For more information about Henrik Ibsen:
“The playwright who changed the theatre: Henrik Ibsen”: https://www.visitnorway.com/things-to-do/art-culture/literature/henrik-ibsen/
“Ghosts and Other Plays”:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/273237/ghosts-and-other-plays-by-henrik-ibsen/
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Jane Hirshfield was born in New York City on February 24, 1953. A poet, translator, essayist, and editor, she received her BA from Princeton University in its first graduating class to include women, and went on to study at the San Francisco Zen Center.
Her books of poetry include Ledger (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020); The Beauty: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), which was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Given Sugar, Given Salt (HarperCollins, 2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Hirshfield is also the author of Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World(Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (HarperCollins, 1997), and an an ebook on Basho, The Heart of Haiku (2011). She has also edited and cotranslated books with Mariko Aratani and Robert Bly.
Her honors include the Poetry Center Book Award, the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Literature, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, Columbia University's Translation Center Award, and the Commonwealth Club of California Poetry Medal, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Her work has been selected for seven editions of Best American Poetry and, in 2004, Hirshfield was awarded the seventieth Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by the Academy of American Poets. In 2019, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
In addition to her work as a freelance writer, editor, and translator, Hirshfield has taught at Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley, in the Bennington MFA Writing Seminars, and at the University of San Francisco. She has been a visiting Poet-in-Residence at Duke University, the University of Alaska, the University of Virginia, and elsewhere, and has been the Elliston Visiting Poet at the University of Cincinnati. She served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2012 to 2017 and is the guest editor for Poem-a-Day in April 2021 (National Poetry Month). Hirshfield lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
From https://poets.org/poet/jane-hirshfield.
For more information about Jane Hirshfield:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sunita Puri about Hirshfield, at 23:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-108-sunita-puri
“Jane Hirshfield”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jane-hirshfield
Ledger by Jane Hirschfield: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612680/ledger-by-jane-hirshfield/
“Jane Hirshfield: The Fullness of Things”: https://onbeing.org/programs/jane-hirshfield-the-fullness-of-things/
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Joseph Conrad [born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski] (1857–1924), was a Polish born mariner and writer who, after a turbulent youth, moved first to France and then Britain. He spent most of his twenties and thirties working on various ships, from wealthy three-masters to rusty steamers, voyaging around the world and rising in rank until he attained a master’s certificate in 1886. The same year Conrad took British nationality. His marine career came finally to an end in 1894 due to increasing importance of steam sail, for which Conrad’s qualifications were not satisfactory. He then began his literary career, for he was drafting stories in his spare time even when working at sea. After a slow start, the major success came between 1897 and 1911 with publications of short stories and novels such as ‘Youth’ (1898), Lord Jim (1899), Heart of Darkness (1899), Typhoon (1902), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), ‘The Secret Sharer’ (1910) and Under Western Eyes (1911). Conrad’s works were influenced by his sea voyages and adventures, and his novels often revolve around the significance of imperial enterprises and the moral dilemmas they inflict. The echoes of his Polish upbringing in a difficult political time may be traced in the underlining sense of isolation, embattled honour, and political disillusionment prevailing many of his works. Because of the exotic settings and adventurous plots of Conrad’s works on one hand, and the moral complexity of his characters on the other, many of his works became an inspiration for stage and film adaptations.
From https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/author/joseph-conrad/.
For more information about Joseph Conrad:
“Joseph Conrad’s Journey”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/joseph-conrads-journey
“At Sea with Joseph Conrad”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/at-sea-with-joseph-conrad.html
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Dean Martin (born June 7, 1917, Steubenville, Ohio, U.S.—died December 25, 1995, Beverly Hills, California) was an American singer and actor who was a member, with Jerry Lewis, of one of the most popular comedy teams on stage and television and in motion pictures for 10 years. Martin then moved on to a successful solo career as a singer, an actor, and a television variety show host.
During his younger days Martin worked locally in steel mills, delivered bootleg liquor, was a prizefighter, and had a job in a casino. After appearing in local nightspots as a pop singer, he was hired by bandleader Sammy Watkins and began to tour. During an engagement in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1946, he and another performer, comedian Jerry Lewis, began clowning around during each other’s acts. This led to an immensely successful comedy partnership that featured Martin as a suave straight man and Lewis as an immature clown. Before long the two left New York for Hollywood. They made 16 motion pictures together, beginning with My Friend Irma (1949) and ending with Hollywood or Bust (1956).
Despite predictions that Martin would fail as a solo act, his career prospered after he ended the partnership with Lewis. Martin struck gold with hit songs such as “That’s Amore” (1953), “Memories Are Made of This” (1955), and “Everybody Loves Somebody” (1964). Simultaneously, he kept his acting career alive, beginning with the World War II drama The Young Lions (1958), in which he starred with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. That same year he released another hit single, “Volare.” His first film appearance with Frank Sinatra was in Some Came Running (1958). Martin also won praise for his performances in Rio Bravo (1959), Bells Are Ringing (1960), Toys in the Attic (1963), and Airport (1970). In addition, he performed with fellow “Rat Pack” members Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. in the heist film Ocean’s Eleven (1960), the comedy western Sergeants 3 (1962), and the musical comedy Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964). Martin also starred as Matt Helm in a popular series of spy spoof films: The Silencers (1966), Murderers’ Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967), and The Wrecking Crew (1968).
Martin was a staple on television for many years. His television variety show, The Dean Martin Show, began an eight-year run in 1965 and was followed by The Dean Martin Comedy Hour (1973–74), the latter a series of celebrity “roasts.” He continued to host celebrity roasts occasionally through 1984. Although Martin often seemed to be intoxicated during his television and nightclub performances—an impression aided by his easygoing manner, ever-present glass, and slurred singing style—he and his friends insisted it was part of his act.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dean-Martin.
For more information about Dean Martin:
“Dean Martin: ‘King of Cool’”: https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/entertainment/2015/10/17/king-cool-dean-martin-stood/74079420/
“Dean Martin, Pop Crooner and Comic Actor, Dies at 78”: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/26/movies/dean-martin-pop-crooner-and-comic-actor-dies-at-78.html
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. She is the award-winning author of three novels, My Year of Meats, All Over Creation, and A Tale for the Time Being, which was a finalist for the 2013 Booker Prize. Her nonfiction work includes a memoir, The Face: A Time Code,and the documentary film, Halving the Bones. She is affiliated with the Everyday Zen Foundation and teaches creative writing at Smith College, where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities.
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/244078/ruth-ozeki/.
For more information about Ruth Ozeki:
“The Book of Form and Emptiness”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/536695/the-book-of-form-and-emptiness-by-ruth-ozeki/
“Ruth Ozeki, Amplifier”: https://www.vulture.com/article/ruth-ozeki-profile.html
“‘We Should Probably Listen Harder’: An Interview with Ruth Ozeki”: https://hazlitt.net/feature/we-should-probably-listen-harder-interview-ruth-ozeki
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Euripides (born c. 484 BC, Athens—died 406 BC, Macedonia) was a Greek playwright. With Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is recognized as one of Athens’s three great tragic dramatists. An associate of the philosopher Anaxagoras, he expressed his questions about Greek religion in his plays. Beginning in 455, he was repeatedly chosen to compete in the dramatic festival of Dionysus; he won his first victory in 441. He competed 22 times, writing four plays for each occasion. Of his 92 plays, about 19 survive, including Medea (431), Hippolytus (428), Electra (418), The Trojan Women(415), Ion (413), Iphigenia at Aulis (406), and The Bacchae (406). Many of his plays include prologues and rely on a deus ex machina. Unlike Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides made his characters’ tragic fates stem almost entirely from their own flawed natures and uncontrolled passions. In his plays chance, disorder, and human irrationality and immorality frequently result in apparently meaningless suffering that is looked on with indifference by the gods.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Euripides.
For more information about Euripides:
“Euripides - Perseus Collection”: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus%3Acorpus%3Aperseus%2Cauthor%2CEuripides
“Hippolytus”: https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/euripides-hippolytus-sb/
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Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939, in Castledawson, County Derry, Northern Ireland. He earned a teacher's certificate in English at St. Joseph's College in Belfast and in 1963 took a position as a lecturer in English at that school. While at St. Joseph's he began to write, joining a poetry workshop with Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, and others under the guidance of Philip Hobsbaum. In 1965 he married Marie Devlin, and the following year he published Death of a Naturalist (Oxford University Press, 1966).
He produced numerous collections of poetry, including Human Chain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), District and Circle (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), Opened Ground (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; The Spirit Level (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996); Selected Poems 1966–1987 (Faber and Faber, 1990); and Sweeney Astray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983). He also wrote several volumes of criticism, including The Redress of Poetry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), and of translation, including Beowulf (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
In June of 2012, Heaney was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust For Excellence in Poetry. He was also a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and held the chair of Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1989 to 1994. In 1995 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Heaney was a resident of Dublin from 1976 to 2013. Beginning in 1981, he also spent part of each year teaching at Harvard University, where in 1984 he was elected the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory. Seamus Heaney passed away in Dublin, Ireland, on August 30, 2013. He was seventy-four.
From https://poets.org/poet/seamus-heaney.
For more information about Seamus Heaney:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Viet Thanh Nguyen about Heaney, at 07:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-052
“How Seamus Heaney Became a Poet of Happiness”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-seamus-heaney-became-a-poet-of-happiness
“Seamus Heaney”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney
“‘If we winter this one out, we can summer anywhere’: The year Heaney helped us through”: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/if-we-winter-this-one-out-we-can-summer-anywhere-the-year-heaney-helped-us-through-1.4438422
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Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1905, Lillian Hellman saw her young life populated by eccentric and avaricious relatives, who later appeared only thinly disguised in her plays. Moving back and forth between New Orleans and New York as a child, Hellman witnessed the diverse cultures within her national borders. After graduating from high school, she briefly attended both Columbia University and New York University. Leaving school, she found a job at a publishing house, where she got her first glimpse of the bohemian lifestyle of the 1920s writer and artist. She married one of these young writers, Arthur Kober, and with him moved to Hollywood.
By the early 1930s, Hellman had found a job as a reader for MGM. Though she found the work dull, it provided her the opportunity to meet a wider range of creative people and to become involved in the artistic and political scene of the times. An ardent leftist, Hellman organized her fellow readers into a union. It was through these political actions that she first met the writer Dashiell Hammett. By 1932 Hellman was already divorced, and her new relationship with Hammett was well under way. Though often rocky, Hellman and Hammett’s relationship remained close until Hammett’s death in 1961.
At the prompting of Hammett, Hellman took her first leap into professional writing with a play about two teachers accused of being lesbians by a privileged student. Overwhelmed by the accusation, one teacher kills herself. “The Children’s Hour,” was a gripping emotional tale about the abuse of power and its effects. The play was an enormous hit on Broadway (running for more than seven hundred performances), and brought the young playwright instant recognition. She followed it soon after with “In Days To Come” (1936) and “The Little Foxes” (1939). Throughout the 1940s and 1950s she continued to write plays and increase her political activism. Her anti-fascist works “Watch the Rhine” (1941) and “The Searching Wind” (1944) directly criticized America’s failures to address and fight Hitler and Mussolini in their early years. Blacklisted in the 1950s for her leftist activism, Hellman continued to write and to speak out against the injustices around her. By the early 1960s, however, Hellman started to move away from drama and concentrated on writing her memoirs. Excited over recent student activism, Hellman began teaching. Throughout the rest of her life she would teach at a number of colleges, including both Harvard and Yale.
In 1969 Hellman published AN UNFINISHED WOMAN, the first of three memoirs that dealt with her social, political, and artistic life. Followed four years later by PENTIMENTO: A BOOK OF PORTRAITS and in 1976 by SCOUNDREL TIME, these books were a moving investigation of the life of a strong, successful woman — the life of a woman who stood against an unjust government and was able to maintain her dignity and artistic vision. Though criticized for inaccuracies, these books were influential not only for their depiction of an exceptional and exciting artistic time, but for their tone, which many associated with the beginnings of the feminist movement. On June 30, 1984 Lillian Hellman died in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts at the age of seventy-nine. Among the many honors she received were two New York Drama Critics Circle Awards, a Gold Medal from the Academy of Arts and Letters for Distinguished Achievement in the Theater, and a National Book Award for AN UNFINISHED WOMAN.
From https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/lillian-hellman-about-lillian-hellman/628/.
For more information about Lillian Hellman:
“The scandalous Lillian Hellman”: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/jan/22/lillian-hellman-childrens-hour-sarah-churchwell
“Lillian Hellman, The Art of Theater No. 1”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4463/the-art-of-theater-no-1-lillian-hellman
“A Conversation with Lillian Hellman”: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/a-conversation-with-lillian-hellman-50202/
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Jim Dine is an American artist and poet known for his contributions to the formation of both Performance Art and Pop Art. Employing motifs which include Pinocchio, hearts, bathrobes, and tools, Dine produces colorful paintings, photographs, prints, and sculptures. “I grew up with tools. I came from a family of people who sold tools, and I’ve always been enchanted by these objects made by anonymous hands,” Dine has said. Born on June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, OH, he studied poetry at the University of Cincinnati before attending the University of Ohio where he received his BFA in 1957. After moving to New York in 1958, Dine became part of a milieu of artists which included Allan Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg, with whom he began to stage performances at sites in the city that later became known as “Happenings.” By the early 1960s, he had switched his focus towards painting, drawing on his interest in popular imagery and commercial objects. Though he was shown alongside Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Dine never considered himself a member of the Pop Art movement. The artist currently lives and works between New York, NY and Walla Walla, WA. His works are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others.
From http://www.artnet.com/artists/jim-dine/.
For more information about Jim Dine:
“Jim Dine”: https://americanart.si.edu/artist/jim-dine-1273
“The Classical and the Contemporary: Conversation with Jim Dine”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwCLiDUAW6I&feature=emb_imp_woyt
“Jim Dine in His Garden, Paris”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIJwy1UIG1A
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John Cage, in full John Milton Cage, Jr., (born September 5, 1912, Los Angeles, California, U.S.—died August 12, 1992, New York, New York) was an American avant-garde composer whose inventive compositions and unorthodox ideas profoundly influenced mid-20th-century music.
Cage’s early compositions were written in the 12-tone method of his teacher Schoenberg, but by 1939 he had begun to experiment with increasingly unorthodox instruments such as the “prepared piano” (a piano modified by objects placed between its strings in order to produce percussive and otherworldly sound effects). Cage also experimented with tape recorders, record players, and radios in his effort to step outside the bounds of conventional Western music and its concepts of meaningful sound. The concert he gave with his percussion ensemble at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1943 marked the first step in his emergence as a leader of the American musical avant-garde.
Among Cage’s best-known works are 4′33″ (Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds, 1952), a piece in which the performer or performers remain utterly silent onstage for that amount of time (although the amount of time is left to the determination of the performer); Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951), for 12 randomly tuned radios, 24 performers, and conductor; the Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48) for prepared piano; Fontana Mix (1958), a piece based on a series of programmed transparent cards that, when superimposed, give a graph for the random selection of electronic sounds; Cheap Imitation (1969), an “impression” of the music of Erik Satie; and Roaratorio (1979), an electronic composition utilizing thousands of words found in James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake.
Cage published several books, including Silence: Lectures and Writings (1961) and M: Writings ’67–’72 (1973). His influence extended to such established composers as Earle Brown, Lejaren Hiller, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff. More broadly, his work was recognized as significant in the development of traditions ranging from minimalist and electronic music to performance art.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Cage.
For more information about John Cage:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sonny Rollins about Cage, at 02:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-130-sonny-rollins
Dwight Trible about Cage, at 12:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-109-dwight-trible
Meredith Monk about Cage, at 14:07: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-meredith-monk-054
Edwin Schlossberg about Cage, at 04:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-040-edwin-schlossberg
“Searching for Silence: John Cage’s art of noise”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/searching-for-silence
“John Cage interview: ‘I gave up the notion of communication as impractical in my case’”: https://www.theguardian.com/music/from-the-archive-blog/2015/dec/08/john-cage-interview-november-1989
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Born in Beirut, Etel Adnan moved to California in the 1950s and built a painting practice inspired by her cross-cultural experiences and spiritual engagement with the natural world. She creates her intimate, small-scale compositions with a palette knife instead of a paint brush, which results in rich, geometric fields of color that evoke sunsets, valleys, and mountains. Mount Tamalpais, a peak in Marin County, California, has been a frequent subject. Adnan studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and established herself as a poet, academic, and essayist before she began to make art. A 2012 presentation at Documenta 13 brought Adnan particular acclaim. She has exhibited in Paris, London, New York, Zurich, Marrakesh, and Los Angeles, among other cities, and her work belongs in the collections of the British Museum, M+, the Centre Pompidou, the Sharjah Art Museum, the Tate, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Adnan has also produced drawings, tapestries, films, and ceramics.
From https://www.artsy.net/artist/etel-adnan.
For more information about Etel Adnan:
“Etel Adnan”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/etel-adnan
“For Etel Adnan, Poet and Painter With Bay Area Ties, Art Was Pure Energy”: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13907271/etel-adnan-remembrance-poet-painter
“Etel Adnan on lightning-strike paintings and words as gestures”: https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/etel-adnan-lightning-strike-paintings-and-words-gestures/
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On December 4, 1875, Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague. His parents placed him in military school with the desire that he become an officer—a position Rilke was not inclined to hold. With the help of his uncle, who realized that Rilke was a highly gifted child, Rilke left the military academy and entered a German preparatory school. By the time he enrolled in Charles University in Prague in 1895, he knew that he would pursue a literary career: he had already published his first volume of poetry, Leben und Lieder, the previous year. At the turn of 1895-1896, Rilke published his second collection, Larenopfer (Sacrifice to the Lares). A third collection, Traumgekrönt (Dream-Crowned) followed in 1896. That same year, Rilke decided to leave the university for Munich, Germany, and later made his first trip to Italy.
In 1897, Rilke went to Russia, a trip that would prove to be a milestone in Rilke's life, and which marked the true beginning of his early serious works. While there the young poet met Tolstoy, whose influence is seen in Das Buch vom lieben Gott und anderes (Stories of God), and Leonid Pasternak, the nine-year-old Boris's father. At Worpswede, where Rilke lived for a time, he met and married Clara Westhoff, who had been a pupil of Rodin. In 1902 he became the friend, and for a time the secretary, of Rodin, and it was during his twelve-year Paris residence that Rilke enjoyed his greatest poetic activity. His first great work, Das Stunden Buch (The Book of Hours), appeared in 1905, followed in 1907 by Neue Gedichte (New Poems) and Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge). Rilke would continue to travel throughout his lifetime; to Italy, Spain and Egypt among many other places, but Paris would serve as the geographic center of his life, where he first began to develop a new style of lyrical poetry, influenced by the visual arts.
When World War I broke out, Rilke was obliged to leave France and during the war he lived in Munich. In 1919, he went to Switzerland where he spent the last years of his life. It was here that he wrote his last two works, the Duino Elegies (1923) and the Sonnets to Orpheus (1923). He died of leukemia on December 29, 1926. At the time of his death his work was intensely admired by many leading European artists, but was almost unknown to the general reading public. His reputation has grown steadily since his death, and he has come to be universally regarded as a master of verse.
From https://poets.org/poet/rainer-maria-rilke.
For more information about Rainer Maria Rilke:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Joy Harjo about Rilke, at 0:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-153-joy-harjo
Rosanne Cash about Rilke, at 22:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
Meredith Monk about Rilke, at 09:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-meredith-monk-054
“Rainer Maria Rilke”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rainer-maria-rilke
“Can Rilke Change Your Life?”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-rilke-change-your-life
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Sophocles (born c. 496, Colonus, near Athens—died 406 BC, Athens) was a Greek playwright. With Aeschylus and Euripides, he was one of the three great tragic playwrights of Classical Athens. A distinguished public figure in Athens, he served successively in important posts as a treasurer, commander, and adviser. He competed in dramatic festivals, where he defeated Aeschylus to win his first victory in 468 BC. He went on to achieve unparalleled success, writing 123 dramas for dramatic competitions and achieving more than 20 victories. Only seven tragedies survive in their entirety: Antigone, Ajax, Electra, The Trachinian Women, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, and Oedipus the King, his best-known work. He increased the size of the chorus and was the first to introduce a third actor onstage. For their supple language, vivid characterization, and formal perfection, his works are regarded as the epitome of Greek drama.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Sophocles.
For more information about Sophocles:
“Can Greek Tragedy Get Us Through the Pandemic?”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/can-greek-tragedy-get-us-through-the-pandemic
“Sophocles”: https://www2.classics.upenn.edu/myth/php/tragedy/index.php?page=sophocles
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Anne Sexton was born Anne Gray Harvey in Newton, Massachusetts, on November 9, 1928. She attended boarding school at Rogers Hall Lowell, Massachusetts, where she first started writing poetry. She attended Garland Junior College for one year and married Alfred Muller Sexton II at age nineteen. Sexton and her husband spent time in San Francisco before moving back to Massachusetts for the birth of their first daughter, Linda Gray Sexton, in 1953.
After her second daughter was born in 1955, Sexton was encouraged by her doctor to pursue an interest in poetry that she had developed in high school. In the fall of 1957, she joined writing groups in Boston that introduced her to many writers such as Maxine Kumin, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath. She published her first two books, To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960) and All My Pretty Ones (1962), with Houghton Mifflin.
In 1965, Sexton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London. She then went on to win the 1967 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her third collection, Live or Die(Houghton Mifflin, 1966). In total, Sexton published nine volumes of poetry during her lifetime, including Love Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 1969), The Book of Folly (Houghton Mifflin, 1973) and The Awful Rowing Toward God (Houghton Mifflin, 9175). She also authored several children's books with Maxine Kumin.
Sexton received several major literary prizes including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1967 Shelley Memorial Prize, the 1962 Levinson Prize, and the Frost Fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. She taught at Boston University and Colgate University, and died on October 4, 1974, in Weston, Massachusetts. Her papers are collected and housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
From https://poets.org/poet/anne-sexton.
For more information about Anne Sexton:
“Anne Sexton”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anne-sexton
“Madness Is a Waste of Time”:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/10/04/madness-waste-time/
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Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1922, Jack Kerouac, baptised Jean Louis Kirouac, was the youngest of three children of French-Canadian immigrants from Quebec, Canada. He was raised speaking the French-Canadian working class dialect Joual until he learned English at age five. Kerouac studied at local Catholic public schools and the Horace Mann School in New York City, as well as Columbia University and The New School. In 1942, Kerouac joined the United States Merchant Marine, and a year later joined the United States Navy—he served only eight days of active duty before being honorably discharged on psychiatric grounds. Soon after, Kerouac was involved in the murder of David Kammerer, having helped his friend Lucien Carr dispose of evidence, and was arrested as a material witness. Unable to convince his father to pay for bail, Kerouac agreed to marry fellow writer Edie Parker in exchange for her financial support and moved to Detroit, Michigan. Their marriage was quickly annulled due to infidelity, and Kerouac returned to New York City in 1944.
Upon Kerouac's return to New York, he lived with his parents in Queens, where he wrote his first novel, The Town and the City (Harcourt Brace, 1950). Through Lucien Carr, Kerouac had met many of the literary figures now associated with the Beat Generation, including Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, and in 1949 he began his most famous literary work, On the Road (Viking Press, 1957), which was tentatively titled "The Beat Generation" and "Gone on the Road." Kerouac finished the largely autobiographical novel in April 1951, though it remained unpublished until 1957. During that time, Kerouac completed ten other autobiographical novels, including The Subterraneans (Grove Press, 1958), Doctor Sax (Grove Press, 1959), Tristessa (Avon, 1960), and Desolation Angels (Coward McCann, 1965).
In July of 1957, Kerouac moved to Orlando, Florida, while awaiting the release of On the Road later that year. Soon after, the New York Times ran a review lauding Kerouac as the voice of a new generation. The success of the novel garnered Kerouac celebrity status as a major American author, and his friendship with Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Gregory Corso cemented the influence of what became known as the Beat Generation. Other poet friends of Kerouac include Philip Lamantia, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Bob Kaufman, Diane di Prima, Lew Welch, and Amiri Baraka.
Though best known for his novels, Kerouac is also associated with poetry of the Beat movement, including spoken word. Kerouac wrote that he wanted "to be considered as a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jazz session on Sunday." Other books published later in Kerouac's career include The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. Jack Kerouac died from a chronic liver disease on October 21, 1969, at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, the result of a lifetime of heavy drinking.
From https://poets.org/poet/jack-kerouac.
For more information about Jack Kerouac:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Harryette Mullen about Kerouac, at 16:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-142-harryette-mullen
“Jack Kerouac”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jack-kerouac
“Jack Kerouac, The Art of Fiction No. 41”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4260/the-art-of-fiction-no-41-jack-kerouac
“The Lonesome Traveler: Kerouac’s Tour of the Unseen New York”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/06/13/jack-kerouac-lonesome-traveler-new-york/
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Marguerite Yourcenar, original name Marguerite de Crayencour, (born June 8, 1903, Brussels, Belgium—died December 17, 1987, Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine, U.S.), was a novelist, essayist, and short-story writer who became the first woman to be elected to the Académie Française (French Academy), an exclusive literary institution with a membership limited to 40. Crayencour was educated at home in French Flanders and spent much of her early life traveling with her father. She began writing as a teenager and continued to do so after her father’s death left her independently wealthy. She led a nomadic life until the outbreak of World War II, at which time she settled permanently in the United States. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1947. The name “Yourcenar” is an imperfect anagram of her original name, “Crayencour.”
Yourcenar’s literary works are notable for their rigorously classical style, their erudition, and their psychological subtlety. In her most important books she re-creates past eras and personages, meditating thereby on human destiny, morality, and power. Her masterpiece is Mémoires d’Hadrien (1951; Memoirs of Hadrian), a historical novel constituting the fictionalized memoirs of that 2nd-century Roman emperor. Another historical novel is L’Oeuvre au noir (1968; The Abyss), an imaginary biography of a 16th-century alchemist and scholar. Among Yourcenar’s other works are the short stories collected in Nouvelles orientales (1938; Oriental Tales), the prose poem Feux (1936; Fires), and the short novel Le Coup de grâce (1939; Eng. trans. Coup de Grâce). Her works were translated by the American Grace Frick, Yourcenar’s secretary and life companion. Yourcenar wrote numerous essays and also translated African American spirituals and various English and American novels into French.
Membership in the Académie Française requires French citizenship. Yourcenar had become a U.S. citizen, however, so the president of France granted her a special dual U.S.–French citizenship in 1979, and she was subsequently elected to the Académie in 1980.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marguerite-Yourcenar.
For more information about Marguerite Yourcenar:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Casey Gerald about Yourcenar, at 24:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-133-casey-gerald
“Marguerite Yourcenar, The Art of Fiction No. 103”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2538/the-art-of-fiction-no-103-marguerite-yourcenar
“Becoming the Emperor”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/02/14/becoming-the-emperor
“Passion and Patience: On the Timeless Virtues of Marguerite Yourcenar’s Hadrian”: https://lithub.com/passion-and-patience-on-the-timeless-virtues-of-marguerite-yourcenars-hadrian/
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Orson Welles, (born May 6, 1915, Kenosha, Wis., U.S.—died Oct. 10, 1985, Los Angeles, Calif.), was a U.S. film director, actor, and producer. He began acting on stage at 16 and made his Broadway debut in 1934. He directed an all-African American cast in Macbeth for the Federal Theatre Project. In 1937 he and John Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre, creating a series of radio dramas, attempting to mount Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock in the face of determined opposition, and winning notoriety with their panic-producing broadcast of War of the Worlds (1938). Welles then moved to Hollywood, where he cowrote, directed, produced, and acted in the classic Citizen Kane (1941), noted for its innovative narrative technique and atmospheric cinematography and considered among the most influential movies in film history. His other films include The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Stranger(1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Touch of Evil (1958), and Chimes at Midnight (1966). His problems with Hollywood studios curtailed future productions, and he moved to Europe. He was also notable as an actor in Jane Eyre (1944), The Third Man (1949), and Compulsion (1959).
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Orson-Welles.
For more information about Orson Welles:
“Orson Welles at a Hundred”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/the-shadow
“Orson Welles at the Cinémathèque Française”: https://www.cinematheque.fr/henri/film/125173-orson-welles-a-la-cinematheque-francaise-pierre-andre-boutang-guy-seligmann-1983/
“Why Orson Welles lived a life like no other”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/28/orson-welles-simon-callow
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Anaïs Nin (born February 21, 1903, Neuilly, France—died January 14, 1977, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) was a French-born author of novels and short stories whose literary reputation rests on the eight published volumes of her personal diaries. Her writing shows the influence of the Surrealist movement and her study of psychoanalysis under Otto Rank. Brought to New York City by her mother in 1914, Nin was educated there but later returned to Europe. She launched her literary career with the publication of D.H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study (1932); the book led to a lifelong friendship with the American author Henry Miller.
At the beginning of World War II Nin returned to New York City. There she continued—at her own expense—to print and publish her novels and short stories, and, although no critical acclaim was forthcoming, her works were admired by many leading literary figures of the time. Not until 1966, with the appearance of the first volume of her diaries, did she win recognition as a writer of significance. The success of the diary provoked interest in her earlier work Cities of the Interior (1959), a five-volume roman-fleuve, or continuous novel, which consists of Ladders to Fire (1946), Children of the Albatross (1947), The Four-Chambered Heart (1950), A Spy in the House of Love (1954), and Solar Barque (1958).
Nin’s literary contribution was a subject of controversy in her lifetime and remained so after her death. Many critics admired her unique expression of femininity, her lyrical style, and her psychological insight. Some dismissed her concern with her own fulfillment as self-indulgent and narcissistic. Opinion was further divided by the posthumous Delta of Venus: Erotica (1977) and later collections of previously unpublished erotic stories written on commission during the financially lean years of the early 1940s. Her other works of fiction included a collection of short stories, Under a Glass Bell (1944); the novels House of Incest (1936), Seduction of the Minotaur(1961), and Collages (1964); and three novelettes collected in Winter of Artifice (1939).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anais-Nin.
For more information about Anaïs Nin:
“In Pursuit of the Extraordinary: Anaïs Nin Reads from Her Famous Diaries”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/09/27/anais-nin-reads-from-diary/
“The Wild, Impassioned World of Anaïs Nin’s Diaries”: https://lithub.com/the-wild-impassioned-world-of-anais-nins-diaries/
Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Sam Shepard (born Nov. 5, 1943, Fort Sheridan, Ill., U.S.—died July 27, 2017, Midway, Ky.) was a U.S. playwright and actor. He worked as an actor and rock musician before turning to playwriting; his early one-act dramas and experimental plays were performed Off-Broadway in the 1960s, winning several Obie Awards. His successful full-length plays, noted for their often surreal images drawn from the American West, science fiction, and popular culture, include The Tooth of Crime (1972), Curse of the Starving Class (1976), Buried Child (1979, Pulitzer Prize), True West (1980), Fool for Love (1983; film 1985), and Simpatico (1996; film 1999). He wrote the screenplay for Paris, Texas (1984) and acted in numerous movies, including Days of Heaven (1978), The Right Stuff (1983), The Pelican Brief (1993), and August: Osage County (2013). Shepard also published several short-story collections.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Sam-Shepard.
For more information about Sam Shepard:
“My Buddy: Patti Smith Remembers Sam Shepard”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/my-buddy-sam-shepard
“Sam Shepard, The Art of Theater No. 12”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1281/the-art-of-theater-no-12-sam-shepard
“Sam Shepard’s Soul”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/sam-shepards-soul
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Heraclitus, also spelled Heracleitus or Herakleitos, (born c.540 BCE, Ephesus, Anatolia [now Selçuk, Turkey]—died c. 480) was a Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, in which fire forms the basic material principle of an orderly universe. Little is known about his life, and the one book he apparently wrote is lost. His views survive in the short fragments quoted and attributed to him by later authors.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heraclitus.
For more information about Herakleitos:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Natasha Trethewey about Herakleitos, at 28:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-145-natasha-trethewey
Lawrence Wilkerson about Herakleitos, at 26:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-071-lawrence-wilkerson
“Heraclitus”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher and cultural critic who published intensively in the 1870s and 1880s. He is famous for uncompromising criticisms of traditional European morality and religion, as well as of conventional philosophical ideas and social and political pieties associated with modernity. Many of these criticisms rely on psychological diagnoses that expose false consciousness infecting people’s received ideas; for that reason, he is often associated with a group of late modern thinkers (including Marx and Freud) who advanced a “hermeneutics of suspicion” against traditional values. Nietzsche also used his psychological analyses to support original theories about the nature of the self and provocative proposals suggesting new values that he thought would promote cultural renewal and improve social and psychological life by comparison to life under the traditional values he criticized.
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/.
For more information about Friedrich Nietzsche:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Lena Herzog about Nietzsche, at 19:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-103-lena-herzog
Claudia Rankine about Nietzsche, at 09:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-094-claudia-rankine
“A Noble New Year’s Resolution from Nietzsche”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/01/02/nietzsche-new-year-resolution/
“Friedrich Nietzsche”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
Laurence Sterne, (born Nov. 24, 1713, Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ire.—died March 18, 1768, London, Eng.) was an English novelist and humorist. Sterne was a clergyman in York for many years before his talents became apparent when he wrote a Swiftian satire in support of his dean in a church squabble. Turning his parishes over to a curate, he began to write Tristram Shandy (1759–67), an experimental novel issued in nine parts in which the story is subordinate to its narrator’s free associations and digressions. It is considered one of the most important ancestors of psychological and stream of consciousness fiction. Long afflicted with tuberculosis, Sterne fled the damp air of England and undertook the travels that inspired his unfinished Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768), a comic novel that defies conventional expectations of a travel book.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/Laurence-Sterne.
For more information about Laurence Sterne:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., about Sterne, at 24:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-104-eddie-s-glaude-jr
Danielle Spencer about Sterne, at 19:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-172-danielle-spencer
“300 years of Laurence Sterne”: https://youtu.be/G0_qt4_XeYk
“Life and Opinions of Laurence Sterne: the first unapologetic literary celebrity”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/mar/18/the-life-and-opinions-of-laurence-sterne-the-first-unapologetic-literary-celebrity
“A Writer in Love with Ruins and Fragments”:
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-delightfully-out-of-control-sentences-of-a-writer-in-love-with-ruins
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London and raised in Rhode Island. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and author of two previous books. Her debut collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award and The New Yorker Debut of the Year. Her novel The Namesake was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and was selected as one of the best books of the year by USA Today and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
From https://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/jhumpalahiri/bio.php.
For more information about Jhumpa Lahiri:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Kwame Dawes about Lahiri, at 20:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-037-kwame-dawes
“Teach Yourself Italian”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/teach-yourself-italian
“At Home with Jhumpa Lahiri”
https://youtu.be/bru9oipYg18
“Writing in Italian, Jhumpa Lahiri Found a New Voice”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/books/jhumpa-lahiri-whereabouts.html
Giacomo Leopardi, (born June 29, 1798, Recanati, Papal States—died June 14, 1837, Naples), was an Italian poet, scholar, and philosopher whose outstanding scholarly and philosophical works and superb lyric poetry place him among the great writers of the 19th century.
A precocious, congenitally deformed child of noble but apparently insensitive parents, Giacomo quickly exhausted the resources of his tutors. At the age of 16 he independently had mastered Greek, Latin, and several modern languages, had translated many classical works, and had written two tragedies, many Italian poems, and several scholarly commentaries. Excessive study permanently damaged his health: after bouts of poor vision, he eventually became blind in one eye and developed a cerebrospinal condition that afflicted him all his life. Forced to suspend his studies for long periods, wounded by his parents’ unconcern, and sustained only by happy relationships with his brother and sister, he poured out his hopes and his bitterness in poems such as Appressamento della morte (written 1816, published 1835; “Approach of Death”), a visionary work in terza rima, imitative of Petrarch and Dante but written with considerable poetic skill and inspired by a genuine feeling of despair.
Two experiences in 1817 and 1818 robbed Leopardi of whatever optimism he had left: his frustrated love for his married cousin, Gertrude Cassi (subject of his journal Diario d’amore and the elegy “Il primo amore”), and the death from consumption of Terese Fattorini, young daughter of his father’s coachman, subject of one of his greatest lyrics, “A Silvia.” The last lines of this poem express the anguish he felt all his life: “O nature, nature, / Why dost thou not fulfill / Thy first fair promise? / Why dost thou deceive / Thy children so?”
Leopardi’s inner suffering was lightened in 1818 by a visit from the scholar and patriot Pietro Giordani, who urged him to escape from his painful situation at home. At last he went to Rome for a few unhappy months (1822–23), then returned home for another painful period, brightened only by the 1824 publication of his verse collection Canzoni. In 1825 he accepted an offer to edit Cicero’s works in Milan. For the next few years he travelled between Bologna, Recanati, Pisa, and Florence and published Versi (1826), an enlarged collection of poems; and Operette morali (1827; “Minor Moral Works”), an influential philosophical exposition, mainly in dialogue form, of his doctrine of despair.
Lack of money forced him to live at Recanati (1828–30), but he escaped again to Florence through the financial help of friends and published a further collection of poems, I canti (1831). Frustrated love for a Florentine beauty, Fanny Targioni-Tozzetti, inspired some of his saddest lyrics. A young Neapolitan exile, Antonio Ranieri, became his friend and only comfort.
Leopardi moved to Rome, then to Florence, and finally settled in Naples in 1833, where, among other works, he wrote Ginestra (1836), a long poem included in Ranieri’s posthumous collection of his works (1845). The death that he had long regarded as the only liberation came to him suddenly in a cholera epidemic in Naples. Leopardi’s genius, his frustrated hopes, and his pain found their best outlet in his poetry, which is admired for its brilliance, intensity, and effortless musicality. His finest poems are probably the lyrics called “Idillii” in early editions of his poetry, among which is “A Silvia.” One English translation of his prose works is James Thomson’s Essays, Dialogues, and Thoughts (1905). Among many translations of Leopardi’s poetry are R.C. Trevelyan’s Translations From Leopardi(1941) and J.-P. Barricelli’s Poems (1963).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giacomo-Leopardi.
For more information about Giacomo Leopardi:
“Giacomo Leopardi”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/giacomo-leopardi
“Why read the nihilistic work of Giacomo Leopardi today?”: https://aeon.co/essays/why-read-the-nihilistic-work-of-giacomo-leopardi-today
Clarice Lispector, (born December 10, 1920, Chechelnyk, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died December 9, 1977, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was a novelist and short-story writer, and one of Brazil’s most important literary figures, who is considered to be among the greatest women writers of the 20th century.
Escaping the Jewish pogroms that were part of life in Ukraine and other parts of the Russian Empire in the late 19th–early 20th century, Lispector at age five immigrated with her parents and two older sisters to Brazil. There her mother died some four years later of syphilis, contracted from a group of Russian soldiers who had raped her. Lispector studied law for a time and then took up journalism.
Her first novel, Perto do coração selvagem(1944; Near to the Wild Heart), published when she was 24 years old, won critical acclaim for its sensitive interpretation of adolescence. In her later works, such as A maçã no escuro (1961; The Apple in the Dark), A paixão segundo G.H. (1964; The Passion According to G.H.), Água viva (1973; The Stream of Life ), A hora da estrela (1977; The Hour of the Star), and Um sopro de vida: pulsações (1978; A Breath of Life), her characters, alienated and searching for meaning in life, gradually gain a sense of awareness of themselves and accept their place in an arbitrary, yet eternal, universe. In 2011 the publishing company New Directions issued a new translation of A hora da estrelaand in 2012 issued new translations of Perto do coração selvagem, Água viva, and A paixão segundo G.H.
Lispector’s finest prose is found in her short stories. Collections such as Laços de família(1960; Family Ties) and A legião estrangeira(1964; The Foreign Legion) focus on personal moments of revelation in the everyday lives of the protagonists and the lack of meaningful communication among individuals in a contemporary urban setting. English translations of her stories were collected as The Complete Stories (2015).
Lispector achieved international fame with works that depict a highly personal, almost existentialist view of the human dilemma and are written in a prose style characterized by a simple vocabulary and elliptical sentence structure. She is notoriously difficult to translate. In contrast to the regional or national social concerns expressed by many of her Brazilian contemporaries, her artistic vision transcends time and place; her characters, in elemental situations of crisis, are frequently female and only incidentally modern or Brazilian.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clarice-Lispector.
For more information about Clarice Lispector:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Casey Gerald about Lispector, at 03:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-133-casey-gerald
“The True Glamour of Clarice Lispector”
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-true-glamour-of-clarice-lispector
“Overlooked No More: Clarice Lispector, Novelist Who Captivated Brazil”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/obituaries/clarice-lispector-overlooked.html
“Clarice Lispector: Madame of the Void”:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/12/10/clarice-lispector-madame-of-the-void/
“The Second Death of Clarice Lispector”:
https://electricliterature.com/the-second-death-of-clarice-lispector/
John Berger was one of the most influential thinkers and writers of postwar Europe. As a novelist, he won the Booker prize in 1972, donating half his prize money to the Black Panthers. As a TV presenter, he changed the way we looked at art with Ways of Seeing. As a storyteller and political activist, he defended the rights and dignity of workers, migrants, and the oppressed around the world. “Far from dragging politics into art,” he wrote in 1953, “art has dragged me into politics.” He remained a revolutionary up to his death in January 2017.
For more information about John Berger:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Terry Tempest Williams about Berger, at 0:50 and 23:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-136-terry-tempest-williams
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/30/john-berger-at-90-interview-storyteller
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/12350/selected-essays-of-john-berger-by-john-berger/
https://youtu.be/0pDE4VX_9Kk
https://youtu.be/USzGCdoLhjQ
C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born on April 29, 1863, in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s, and died on the same day in 1933. During his lifetime Cavafy was an obscure poet, living in relative seclusion and publishing little of his work. A short collection of his poetry was privately printed in the early 1900s and reprinted with new verse a few years later, but that was the extent of his published poetry. Instead, Cavafy chose to circulate his verse among friends.
Cavafy is the leading poet of the periphery, writing in Greek far from Greek lands. The body of his poetry includes the 154 poems of the “canon”; 37 “repudiated poems,” most of which are juvenilia written in romantic katharevousa; 75 “hidden” poems that were found finished in his papers; and 30 “unfinished” poems. His poems often feature historical figures or creations of the poet’s imagination, with frequent references to elements of Homeric, Hellenistic, and Byzantine years. Today, his poetry occupies a prominent place in both Greek and world literature.
You may read the complete C. P. Cavafy bio here https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/ and discover the digital collection of the Cavafy Archive here https://cavafy.onassis.org/.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/c-p-cavafy and https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/.
For more information about C. P. Cavafy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy, at 11:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-096-daniel-mendelsohn
“The Cavafy Dossier”: https://read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2/issue/48/2
“C.P. Cavafy: Complete Poems”: https://www.danielmendelsohn.com/book/c-p-cavafy-complete-poems
“Ithaka”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51296/ithaka-56d22eef917ec
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Born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 13, 1865, William Butler Yeats was the son of a well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. He spent his childhood in County Sligo, where his parents were raised, and in London. He returned to Dublin at the age of fifteen to continue his education and study painting, but quickly discovered he preferred poetry. Born into the Anglo-Irish landowning class, Yeats became involved with the Celtic Revival, a movement against the cultural influences of English rule in Ireland during the Victorian period, which sought to promote the spirit of Ireland's native heritage. Though Yeats never learned Irish Gaelic himself, his writing at the turn of the century drew extensively from sources in Irish mythology and folklore. Also a potent influence on his poetry was the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, whom he met in 1889, a woman equally famous for her passionate nationalist politics and her beauty. Though she married another man in 1903 and grew apart from Yeats (and Yeats himself was eventually married to another woman, Georgie Hyde Lees), she remained a powerful figure in his poetry.
Yeats was deeply involved in politics in Ireland, and in the twenties, despite Irish independence from England, his verse reflected a pessimism about the political situation in his country and the rest of Europe, paralleling the increasing conservativism of his American counterparts in London, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. His work after 1910 was strongly influenced by Pound, becoming more modern in its concision and imagery, but Yeats never abandoned his strict adherence to traditional verse forms. He had a life-long interest in mysticism and the occult, which was off-putting to some readers, but he remained uninhibited in advancing his idiosyncratic philosophy, and his poetry continued to grow stronger as he grew older. Appointed a senator of the Irish Free State in 1922, he is remembered as an important cultural leader, as a major playwright (he was one of the founders of the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin), and as one of the very greatest poets—in any language—of the century. W. B. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 and died in 1939 at the age of seventy-three.
From https://poets.org/poet/w-b-yeats.
For more information about W. B. Yeats:
“William Butler Yeats”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats
“How did Yeats interpet his own poetry?”: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/how-did-yeats-interpret-his-own-poetry-a-clue-lies-in-an-irish-times-article-from-1923-1.4176374
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Poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22, 1892. In 1912, Millay entered her poem "Renascence" to The Lyric Year's poetry contest, where she won fourth place and publication in the anthology. This brought her immediate acclaim and a scholarship to Vassar College, where she continued to write poetry and became involved in the theater. In 1917, the year of her graduation, Millay published her first book, Renascence and Other Poems (Harper, 1917). At the request of Vassar's drama department, she also wrote her first verse play, The Lamp and the Bell (1921), a work about love between women.
After graduating from Vassar, Millay moved to New York City's Greenwich Village, where she lived with her sister Norma in a nine-foot-wide attic. Millay published poems in Vanity Fair, the Forum, and others while writing short stories and satire under the pen name Nancy Boyd. She and Norma acted with the Provincetown Players in the group's early days, befriending writers such as poet Witter Bynner, critic Edmund Wilson, playwright and actress Susan Glaspell, and journalist Floyd Dell. Millay publishedA Few Figs from Thistles (Harper & Brothers, 1920), a volume of poetry which drew much attention for its controversial descriptions of female sexuality and feminism. In 1923, Millay was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver (Flying Cloud Press, 1922). In addition to publishing three plays in verse, Millay also wrote the libretto of one of the few American grand operas, The King's Henchman (Harper & Brothers, 1927).
Millay married Eugen Boissevain in 1923, and the two were together for twenty-six years. Boissevain gave up his own pursuits to manage Millay's literary career, setting up the readings and public appearances for which Millay grew famous. Edna St. Vincent Millay died at the age of fifty-eight on October 18, 1950, in Austerlitz, New York.
From https://poets.org/poet/edna-st-vincent-millay.
For more information about Edna St. Vincent Millay:
“Edna St. Vincent Millay”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edna-st-vincent-millay
“First Fig”: https://poets.org/poem/first-fig
“Defiant and Unsinkable: The Ethos of Edna St. Vincent Millay”: https://lithub.com/defiant-and-unsinkable-the-ethos-of-edna-st-vincent-millay/
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Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) is one of the best-loved authors of popular fiction of her generation. Her novels established her as a master storyteller, but she also wrote plays, short stories and biographies. Haunting and atmospheric, her work occupies a unique place in 20th century literature, appealing to a broad audience yet worthy of literary merit.
Daphne du Maurier’s first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931 to critical acclaim. She married Major Frederick Arthur Montague ('Boy') Browning in 1932 and had her first daughter, Tessa, in 1933. Her frank biography of her father, Gerald: A Portrait (1934) shocked some of her father’s admirers but also gained her recognition as a talented writer. In 1936, publication of Jamaica Inn propelled her to the top of the best-seller lists.
An unhappy period in Egypt as an army wife gave rise to Daphne du Maurier’s best-known novel, Rebecca (1938). An intense study of female jealousy, Rebecca was made into a successful film in 1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Frenchman’s Creek (1941) and Hungry Hill (1943) followed, both of which were also made into successful films. She had another daughter, Flavia, in 1937, and a son, Christian, in 1940, and while her husband was away at war, she moved back to Cornwall with the children to live in 'Menabilly', a house which she had loved since her early 20s.
During and after the war, the du Mauriers’ marriage became strained. This prompted her to write a play, The Years Between (performed in 1944), which explored the effects of war on marriage. My Cousin Rachel (1951) was followed by two collections of short stories, The Apple Tree (1952) and The Breaking Point(1959); the latter was also influenced by her psychological stress. The Scapegoat (1957), a novel exploring themes of stolen identity and the self, is appreciated by critics as a more serious work, though at the time it was pigeonholed as another of her romantic thrillers. In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock’s film version of her short story The Birds, was released and became a cult classic. The death of her husband, in 1965, affected Daphne du Maurier profoundly and her unease was compounded by a growing sense that her imaginative talent was waning. Unable to renew the lease on her treasured home, Menabilly, she moved to Kilmarth, in Par, where she wrote the well-received The House on the Strand in 1969, the same year that she was made a DBE. She subsequently entered into a period of creative and personal decline, culminating with a nervous breakdown in 1981. She died at home in Cornwall in 1989 at the age of 81.
From https://www.bl.uk/people/daphne-du-maurier.
For more information about Daphne du Maurier:
“In Praise of Daphne du Maurier”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/books/daphne-du-maurier-enthusiast.html
“Daphne du Maurier: In Rebecca’s Footsteps”: https://player.pbs.org/widget/partnerplayer/3051784528/?callsign=WLIW
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Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) was born in the countryside outside Turin, Italy. At age twenty-two he earned a PhD with a thesis on Walt Whitman and in the 1930s he became one of Italy’s leading translators of American literature; his version of Moby Dick is still the standard. In 1935 he was jailed on the vague charge of “anti-Fascist activities,” sentenced to three years of detention, and exiled to Brancaleone, Calabria. During this time he finished his first book, a collection of poems entitled Lavorare stanca (Hard Labor), the book he considered his masterpiece. He served ten months of his sentence, then returned to Turin and continued translating. In 1941 he published his first novel and ushered in a decade of ceaseless literary activity—by 1950 he had written nine novels and numerous novellas, short stories, poems, and critical essays. In May of 1950, at the peak of his career, he was awarded Italy’s most coveted literary honor, the Premio Strega; in August he committed suicide, leaving these last words in his diary: “No words. An act. I won’t write any more.”
From https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/authors/cesare-pavese/.
For more information about Cesare Pavese:
“Cesare Pavese”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/cesare-pavese
“The town where the Cesare Pavese legend lives on”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/arts/24iht-pavese.html
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F. Scott Fitzgerald, (born Sept. 24, 1896, St. Paul, Minn., U.S.—died Dec. 21, 1940, Hollywood, Calif.) was a U.S. novelist and short-story writer. Fitzgerald attended Princeton University but dropped out with bad grades. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre (1900–48), daughter of a respected Alabama judge. His works, including the early novels This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and Damned (1922) and the story collections Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) and All the Sad Young Men (1926), capture the Jazz Age’s vulgarity and dazzling promise. His brilliant The Great Gatsby (1925; film, 1926, 1949, 1974; TV movie 2001), a story of American wealth and corruption, was eventually acclaimed one of the century’s greatest novels. In 1924 Scott and Zelda became part of the expatriate community on the French Riviera, the setting of Tender Is the Night (1934; film, 1962). His fame and prosperity proved disorienting to them both, and he became seriously alcoholic. Zelda never fully recovered from a mental breakdown in 1932 and spent most of her remaining years in a sanitarium. In 1937 Scott moved to Hollywood to write film scripts; the experience inspired the unfinished The Last Tycoon (1941; film, 1976). He died of a heart attack at age 44.
From https://www.britannica.com/summary/F-Scott-Fitzgerald.
For more information about F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Pico Iyer about Fitzgerald, at 04:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-004-pico-iyer
“F. Scott Fitzgerald: That Sad Young Man”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1926/04/17/that-sad-young-man
“Nearly a Century Later, We’re Still Reading–and Changing Our Minds About–Gatsby”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/books/great-gatsby-fitzgerald-copyright.html
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Activist and writer bell hooks was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky as Gloria Jean Watkins. As a child, hooks performed poetry readings of work by Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She earned a BA from Stanford University, an MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD from the University of California-Santa Cruz.
hooks was the author of over 30 books, including Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), named by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the 20 most influential books published in 20 years; Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984); Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (1991), winner of the American Book Award/Before Columbus Foundation Award; Teaching to Transgress (1994); the children’s book Homemade Love (2002), named the Bank Street College Children’s Book of the Year; and the poetry collections And There We Wept (1978) and When Angels Speak of Love (2005), and Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place (2012), winner of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Best Poetry Award.
Throughout her life, hooks explored the relationship between sexism, racism, and economic disparity in books aimed at scholars and at the public. In an interview with Bomb Magazine, she said, “To think of certain ways of writing as activism is crucial. What does it matter if we write eloquently about decolonization if it’s just white privileged kids reading our eloquent theory about it? Masses of black people suffer from internalized racism, our intellectual work will never impact on their lives if we do not move it out of the academy. That’s why I think mass media is so important.” hooks was the winner of the Writer’s Award from the Lila-Wallace—Reader’s Digest Fund, and has been named one of our nation’s leading public intellectuals by the Atlantic. She taught at the USC, Yale University, Oberlin College, the City College of New York, and Berea College. hooks died in late 2021 at the age of 69.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/bell-hooks.
For more information about bell hooks:
“The Revolutionary Writing of bell hooks”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks
“All About Love”: https://www.npr.org/2000/03/19/1071796/all-about-love
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Jonas Edward Salk, developer of the first successful vaccine for polio, was born on October 28, 1914 in New York City. The oldest son of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Salk worked after school to help pay for his education at the City College of New York, and then the New York University School of Medicine. He was the first member of his family to attend college. He graduated from NYU in 1938.
At NYU Salk had begun working with microbiologist Thomas Francis, Jr., who was looking for an influenza vaccine. They worked together and actually developed a vaccine that was used in the military during World War II. In 1942, Salk went to the University of Michigan on a research fellowship and soon advanced to the position of assistant professor of epidemiology, or, the study of the causes and control of epidemics. He continued his research in the field and began teaching at the University of Pittsburgh in 1947.
While working there, Salk developed a relationship with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now the March of Dimes). Since the turn of the century, polio outbreaks had grown more frequent— 57,628 cases were recorded in 1952. He saw a great need for a vaccine against polio, and decided to devote his research to that cause for the next eight years. His hard work paid off. In 1952, he announced the development of a trial vaccine for Polio, or poliomyelitis.
His vaccine was composed of "killed" polio virus, which retained the ability to immunize without the risk of infecting the patient. He first inoculated volunteers, including himself, his wife, and their three sons, with a polio vaccine made from this killed virus. Everyone who received the test vaccine began producing antibodies to the disease, yet no one became ill. In 1954 he published his findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and nationwide testing was carried out. Salk's former mentor Thomas Francis, Jr., directed the vaccination of nearly two million schoolchildren, and the results proved Salk's polio vaccine to be safe and effective.
News of the discovery was made public in April, 1955, and Salk was considered a miracle worker. He had no desire to profit personally from the discovery, but merely wished to see the vaccine disseminated as widely as possible. In 1963, he established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla in 1963. He left his position at the University of Pittsburgh in 1964 to dedicate full-time to his institute and the study of infectious diseases. Salk's last years were spent searching for a vaccine against AIDS. He died on June 23, 1995 at 80 years of age. He was director of the Salk Institute until his death.
From https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/jonas-salk.
For more information about Jonas Salk:
“The Last Time a Vaccine Saved America”: https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-last-time-a-vaccine-saved-america
“Dr. Jonas Salk and the Continuing Battle Against Polio”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/obituaries/archives/jonas-salk
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Martin Buber (1878–1965) was a prolific author, scholar, literary translator, and political activist whose writings—mostly in German and Hebrew—ranged from Jewish mysticism to social philosophy, biblical studies, religious phenomenology, philosophical anthropology, education, politics, and art. Most famous among his philosophical writings is the short but powerful book I and Thou (1923) where our relation to others is considered as twofold. The I-it relation prevails between subjects and objects of thought and action; the I-Thou relation, on the other hand, obtains in encounters between subjects that exceed the range of the Cartesian subject-object relation. Though originally planned as a prolegomenon to a phenomenology of religion, I and Thou proved influential in other areas as well, including the philosophy of education. The work of Martin Buber remains a linchpin of qualitative philosophical anthropology and continues to be cited in fields such as philosophical psychology, medical anthropology, and pedagogical theory. Buber’s writings on Jewish national renaissance, Hasidism, and political philosophy made him a major twentieth-century figure in Jewish thought and the philosophy of religion. Buber’s extensive writing on the political dimensions of biblical historiography and prophetic literature not only made contributions to the history of religion but also to contemporary discussions on political theology with an anarchistic bent. His translation, with Franz Rosenzweig, of the Hebrew Bible into German remains a classic in the German language.
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/.
For more information about Martin Buber:
“I and Thou: Philosopher Martin Buber on the Art of Relationship and What Makes Us Real to One Another”: https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/03/18/i-and-thou-martin-buber/
“Modernity, Faith, and Martin Buber”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/06/modernity-faith-and-martin-buber
“Martin Buber”:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/
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A pioneer of the 1960s British movement, David Hockney is one of the most celebrated and prolific artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Endlessly versatile, he has produced acrylic paintings, photo collages, full-scale opera set designs, and digital works created on iPads. Hockney first gained recognition for his semi-abstract paintings of gay love. He moved to California in 1964 and captured his new home in sensual, pastel-hued scenes of uninhibited queer men whose idyllic, sunny backdrops feature swimming pools, palm trees, and light, beautiful homes. Hockney has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among many other institutions. On the secondary market, his work has sold for more than $90 million.
From https://www.artsy.net/artist/david-hockney.
For more information about David Hockney:
“Hockney shares exclusive art from Normandy, as ‘a respite from the news’”: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52109901
“David Hockney, Contrarian, Shifts Perspectives”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/arts/design/david-hockney-los-angeles-metropolitan-museum-of-art-reverse-perspective.html
“David Hockney in lockdown: How the artist found his perpetual spring in a horrible year”: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-12-16/david-hockney-lockdown-covid-normandy-france
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American poet, essayist, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, in Boston, Massachusetts. After studying at Harvard and teaching for a brief time, Emerson entered the ministry. He was appointed to the Old Second Church in his native city, but soon became an unwilling preacher. Unable in conscience to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after the death of his nineteen-year-old wife of tuberculosis, Emerson resigned his pastorate in 1831.
The following year, he sailed for Europe, visiting Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Carlyle, the Scottish-born English writer, was famous for his explosive attacks on hypocrisy and materialism, his distrust of democracy, and his highly romantic belief in the power of the individual. Emerson's friendship with Carlyle was both lasting and significant; the insights of the British thinker helped Emerson formulate his own philosophy. On his return to New England, Emerson became known for challenging traditional thought. In 1835, he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson, and settled in Concord, Massachusetts. Known in the local literary circle as "The Sage of Concord," Emerson became the chief spokesman for Transcendentalism, the American philosophic and literary movement. Centered in New England during the 19th century, Transcendentalism was a reaction against scientific rationalism.
Emerson's first book, Nature (1836), is perhaps the best expression of his Transcendentalism, the belief that everything in our world—even a drop of dew—is a microcosm of the universe. His concept of the Over-Soul—a Supreme Mind that every man and woman share—allowed Transcendentalists to disregard external authority and to rely instead on direct experience. "Trust thyself," Emerson's motto, became the code of Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and W. E. Channing. From 1842 to 1844, Emerson edited the Transcendentalist journal, The Dial. Emerson wrote a poetic prose, ordering his essays by recurring themes and images. His poetry, on the other hand, is often called harsh and didactic. Among Emerson's most well known works are Essays, First and Second Series (1841, 1844). The First Series includes Emerson's famous essay, "Self-Reliance," in which the writer instructs his listener to examine his relationship with Nature and God, and to trust his own judgment above all others.
Emerson's other volumes include Poems (1847), Representative Men (1850), The Conduct of Life (1860), and English Traits (1865). His best-known addresses are The American Scholar (1837) and The Divinity School Address, which he delivered before the graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, shocking Boston's conservative clergymen with his descriptions of the divinity of man and the humanity of Jesus. Emerson's philosophy is characterized by its reliance on intuition as the only way to comprehend reality, and his concepts owe much to the works of Plotinus, Swedenborg, and Böhme. A believer in the "divine sufficiency of the individual," Emerson was a steady optimist. His refusal to grant the existence of evil caused Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry James, Sr., among others, to doubt his judgment. In spite of their skepticism, Emerson's beliefs are of central importance in the history of American culture. Ralph Waldo Emerson died of pneumonia on April 27, 1882.
From https://poets.org/poet/ralph-waldo-emerson.
For more information about Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., about Emerson, at 21:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-104-eddie-s-glaude-jr
Samantha Rose Hill about Emerson, at 17:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-171-samantha-rose-hill
“Ralph Waldo Emerson”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ralph-waldo-emerson
“Ralph Waldo Emerson”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/mayjune/feature/ralph-waldo-emerson
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Raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Dorothy Parker built a career that was defined by her wit and her incisive commentary on contemporary America. She was born two months prematurely at her family’s summer home in West End, New Jersey. By the time she was five, she had lost her mother; by age 20, she had also lost her father, a garment manufacturer. She studied at Blessed Sacrament Convent School in New York City, and a finishing school, Miss Dana’s, in Morristown, New Jersey, but never received a high school diploma. She supported herself as a pianist at a dance academy until entering the world of magazine publishing.
After selling her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1914, she became a regular contributor to Vogue. In 1917, she took over P.G. Wodehouse’s role as theater critic at Vanity Fair. That same year, she married her first husband, stockbroker Edwin P. Parker. It was an unhappy marriage and the couple divorced about a decade later. While building a career in criticism, she was a key member of the Round Table, a group of writers who traded witticisms over lunch at the Algonquin Hotel. She was an inaugural member of the board of editors at the New Yorker upon its founding in 1925, and over the next decade she frequently contributed short poems to its pages.
In 1926, Parker published her first book of poetry, Enough Rope, which became a bestseller. Her other collections include Sunset Gun (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931). Parker’s poetry is marked by cleverness but also by the deep depression that plagued her. Focusing on power dynamics, especially those involving gender, her poetry—sometimes dismissed as “light” or “flapper” verse—pulled apart the fabric of American society. During the 1920s and early 1930s, she also published several books of short stories.
Parker moved to Hollywood in 1934. There, she worked as a screenwriter on films such as A Star Is Born and garnered several Oscar nominations, with her second husband Alan Campbell. During that time, she was engaged in left-wing politics, raising money for progressive causes, reporting from Spain about the Civil War, and writing articles for the New Masses. She was also the national chairman of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. Before Parker’s death in 1967 at the age of 73, she specified that the bulk of her estate was to go to Martin Luther King, Jr. When King was assassinated less than a year later, it passed to the NAACP.
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dorothy-parker.
For more information about Dorothy Parker:
“Dorothy Parker’s Stunning Wit and Tragic Life”: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170605-dorothy-parkers-stunning-wit-and-tragic-life
“Dorothy Parker, The Art of Fiction No. 13”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4933/the-art-of-fiction-no-13-dorothy-parker
“Dorothy Parker”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dorothy-parker
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Colette, the creator of Claudine, Cheri and Gigi, and one of France’s outstanding writers, had a long, varied and active life. She was born in Burgundy on 1873 into a home overflowing with dogs, cats and children, and educated at the local village school. At the age of twenty she moved to Paris with her first husband, the notorious writer and critic Henry Gauthier-Villas (Willy). By locking her in her room, Willy forced Collette to write her first novels (the Claudine sequence), which he published under his name. They were an instant success. Colettte left Willy in 1906 and worked in music-halls as an actor and dancer. She had a love affair with Napoleon’s niece, married twice more, had a baby at 40 and at 47. Her writing, which included novels, portraits, essays and a large body of autobiographical prose, was admired by Proust and Gide. She was the first woman President of the Académie Goncourt, and when she died, aged 81, she was given a state funeral and buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
From https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/1000562/colette.html?tab=penguin-biography.
For more information about Colette:
“Wild, controversial, and free: Colette, a life too big for film”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/07/colette-french-novelist-movie-keira-knightley
“Colette’s Burgundy”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/travel/colettes-burgundy-france.html
“Colette.”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1935/06/01/colette
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George Carlin, in full George Denis Patrick Carlin, (born May 12, 1937, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died June 22, 2008, Santa Monica, Calif.), was an American comedian whose “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the right to determine when to censor radio and TV broadcasts.
Carlin began working in the late 1950s as a wisecracking radio disc jockey and low-key stand-up comedian known for such whimsical routines as “Wonderful WINO” and the “Hippy Dippy Weatherman.” Beginning in the 1970s, however, he transformed himself into a provocative and incisive antiestablishment comic icon. Carlin was most closely identified with the monologue “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” in which he satirically analyzed the use and misuse of seven of the raunchiest obscenities in the English language. Carlin was arrested in 1972 for performing the monologue onstage, but a judge dismissed the case. In 1973 New York City radio station WBAI-FM triggered a lawsuit by the FCC after it aired a recorded version of the routine called “Filthy Words.” The landmark “Carlin case” was finally settled in 1978 by the U.S. Supreme Court: in a 5–4 ruling, it gave the FCC the ability to censor offensive content in radio and TV broadcasts.
Carlin released more than 20 comedy albums and starred in 14 HBO television specials. As an actor, he usually played a character inspired by his own comic persona (as in the short-lived situation comedy The George Carlin Show [1994]), with the notable exception of his stint in the 1990s as the amiable narrator (and onscreen host, Mr. Conductor) of the children’s programs Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and Shining Time Station. Carlin was honoured with the American Comedy Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award (2001) and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (2008). In 2004 the cable television network Comedy Central ranked Carlin second on its list of the “100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time,” behind African American actor-comedian Richard Pryor and just ahead of the legendary Lenny Bruce. His final HBO special, It’s Bad for Ya, aired just months before his death, and it won the Grammy Award for best comedy album in 2009. His memoir, Last Words, was published later that year.
From: https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Carlin.
For more information about George Carlin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Andy Borowitz about Carlin, at 20:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-152-andy-borowitz
“Jon Stewart Interviews George Carlin”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCGGWeD_EJk
“The Station That Dared to Defend Carlin’s ‘Seven Words’ Looks Back”: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/nyregion/25wbai.html
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Art Buchwald, in full Arthur Buchwald, (born Oct. 20, 1925, Mt. Vernon, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 17, 2007, Washington, D.C.), was a U.S. humour writer and columnist. Buchwald moved to Paris in 1948. His popular original column—reviews of the city’s nightlife for the Paris (later International) Herald Tribune—increasingly included offbeat spoofs and candid comments from celebrities. After moving in 1961 to Washington, D.C., he began poking fun at issues in the news, soon becoming established as one of the sharpest satirists of American politics and modern life. His widely syndicated work won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. His books include numerous collections of columns and the memoir I’ll Always Have Paris (1996). In Too Soon to Say Goodbye (2006), written after he decided to forgo kidney dialysis, Buchwald discussed his mortality.
From
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Art-Buchwald
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Wendell Berry, an essayist, novelist, and poet, has been honored with the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Aiken Taylor Award for poetry, the John Hay Award of the Orion Society, and the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among others. In 2010, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by Barack Obama, and in 2016, he was the recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle. He is also a fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wendell lives with his wife, Tanya Berry, on their farm in Henry County, Kentucky.
From https://www.counterpointpress.com/authors/wendell-berry/.
For more information about Wendell Berry:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Naomi Klein about Berry, at 02:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-158-naomi-klein
“Our Real Work”: https://gratefulness.org/resource/our-real-work-poem-wendell-berry/
“Wendell Berry is still ahead of us”: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/2/20862854/wendell-berry-climate-change-port-royal-michael-pollan
“Going Home with Wendell Berry”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/going-home-with-wendell-berry
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Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. An author of four novels (Jonah’s Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountain, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948); two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935, and Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College and Columbia University, and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1927. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida. She died in Fort Pierce, in 1960. In 1973, Alice Walker had a headstone placed at her gravesite with this epitaph: “Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South.”
From https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/zora-neale-hurston.
For more information about Zora Neale Hurston:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
“Zora Neale Hurston, American Contrarian”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/02/17/a-society-of-one
“Alice Walker Shines Light on Zora Neale Hurston”: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/alice-walker-film-excerpt-walker-puts-zora-neale-hurston-back-in-spotlight/2869/
“Where to Start with Zora Neale Hurston”: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2019/09/16/where-start-zora-neale-hurston
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Czeslaw Milosz was born to Weronika and Aleksander Milosz on June 30, 1911, in Szetejnie, Lithuania (then under the domination of the Russian tsarist government). Milosz graduated from high school in 1929, and in 1930 his first poems were published in Alma Mater Vilnenis, a university magazine. In 1931 he cofounded the Polish avant-garde literary group "Zagary"; his first collection of verse appeared in 1933. He spent most of World War II in Nazi-occupied Warsaw working for underground presses.
After the war, he came to the United States as a diplomat for the Polish communist government, working at the Polish consulate first in New York City, then in Washington D. C. In 1950 he was transferred to Paris, and the following year he requested and received political asylum. He spent the next decade in Paris as a freelance writer. In 1953 he published The Captive Mind (Alfred A. Knopf), and his novel, The Seizure of Power (Criterion Books, 1955), received the Prix Littéraire European from the Swiss Book Guild. In 1960 he moved to the United States to become a lecturer in Polish literature at the University of California at Berkeley. He later became professor of Slavic languages and literature. He did not visit Poland again until 1981.
In 1980, Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His other honors include an award for poetry translations from the Polish PEN Center in Warsaw, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. He has written virtually all of his poems in his native Polish, although his work was banned in Poland until after he won the Nobel Prize. He has also translated the works of other Polish writers into English, and has cotranslated his own works with such poets as Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky. His translations into Polish include portions of the Bible (from Hebrew and Greek) and works by Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, John Milton, William Shakespeare, Simone Weil, and Walt Whitman. He died on August 14, 2004.
From https://poets.org/poet/czeslaw-milosz.
For more information about Czeslaw MIlosz:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
“Ars Poetica?”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49455/ars-poetica-56d22b8f31558
“Czeslaw Milosz’s Battle for Truth”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/czeslaw-miloszs-battle-for-truth
“Czeslaw Milosz”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/czeslaw-milosz
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Carl Jung, in full Carl Gustav Jung, (born July 26, 1875, Kesswil, Switzerland—died June 6, 1961, Küsnacht), was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded analytic psychology, in some aspects a response to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of the extraverted and the introverted personality, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, literature, and related fields.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung.
For more information about Carl Jung:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
“Jung on Film”: https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/carl_gustav_jung_explains_his_groundbreaking_theories_about_psychology_in_rare_interview_1957.html
“Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious”: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html
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Don DeLillo is the author of seventeen novels including White Noise, Libra, Underworld, Falling Man, and Zero K. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work, and the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His story collection The Angel Esmeralda was a finalist for the Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 2013, DeLillo was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, and in 2015, the National Book Foundation awarded DeLillo its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
From https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Don-DeLillo/1098974.
For more information about Don DeLillo:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
“Don DeLillo, The Art of Fiction No. 135”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1887/the-art-of-fiction-no-135-don-delillo
“We all Live in Don DeLillo’s World. He’s Confused By It Too.”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/12/magazine/don-delillo-interview.html
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Mario Orlando Hamlet Hardy Brenno Benedetti, known as Mario Benedetti, was a Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet. He is considered one of the most important 20th century Latin American writers, especially in the Spanish-speaking world. A revolutionary and a passionate romantic, Benedetti wrote of love, anger, political resistance and redemption, particularly during the period of his enforced exile from Uruguay, between 1973 and 1985. One of his last poems encapsulated his unquenchable creative urge: “When I’m buried / don’t forget to put a Biro in my coffin.”
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2001701/mario-benedetti/.
For more information about Mario Benedetti:
“Outpouring for Mario Benedetti”: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/outpouring-for-mario-benedetti
“Mario Benedetti’s Wise, Lonely Novel About Political Exile”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/mario-benedettis-wise-lonely-novel-about-political-exile
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Philosophical Daoism traces its origins to Laozi, or Lao Tzu, an extraordinary thinker who flourished during the sixth century B.C.E., according to Chinese sources. According to some modern scholars, however, Laozi is entirely legendary; there was never a historical Laozi. In religious Daoism, Laozi is revered as a supreme deity.
The name “Laozi” is best taken to mean “Old (lao) Master (zi),” and Laozi the ancient philosopher is said to have written a short book, which has come to be called simply the Laozi, after its putative author, a common practice in early China.
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/.
For more information about Lao Tzu:
“Did Lao-Tzu and Confucius Know Each Other?” https://lithub.com/did-lao-tzu-and-confucius-know-each-other/
“Laozi”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/
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Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) was an American poet known for her work focusing on the African American experience and family life. Winner of the National Book Award and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Clifton is the only author to have two books of poetry nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the same year. She is best known for her collections Two-Headed Woman, Next, Good Woman, and Quilting. In addition to her several poetry collections, Clifton also wrote numerous books for children, including her Everett Anderson series.
From https://www.nyrb.com/collections/lucille-clifton.
For more information about Lucille Clifton:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Thelma Golden about Clifton, at 25:22: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-174-thelma-golden
“Lucille Clifton”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucille-clifton
“Remembering Lucille Clifton”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/remembering-lucille-clifton
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Umberto Eco (1932–2016) wrote fiction, literary criticism and philosophy. His first novel, The Name of the Rose, was a major international bestseller. His other works include Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero along with many brilliant collections of essays.
From https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/1003021/umberto-eco.html?tab=penguin-biography.
For more information about Umberto Eco:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Calvin Trillin about Umberto Eco, at 03:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-161-calvin-bud-trillin
William Gibson about Umberto Eco, at 24:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-024-william-gibson
“Umberto Eco, The Art of Fiction No. 197”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5856/the-art-of-fiction-no-197-umberto-eco
“Umberto Eco Interview: I Was Always Narrating”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8IWTOFNlOc
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Odysseus Elytis was born in Crete in 1911 and at age eighteen he heard “a secret voice” that led him to abandon everything for his art. His nom de plume fuses three important Greek concepts: eleftheria (freedom), elpitha (hope), and Eleni (Helen of Troy). His first book was published at the outset of World War II and was followed by a publishing history that spans more than half a century and includes poetry, essays, and translations into Greek from Rimbaud, Genet, Brecht, García Lorca, Mayakovsky, and Ungaretti. Elytis received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979 and died in Greece on the last day of winter in 1996.
From https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/authors/odysseas-elytis/.
For more information about Odysseus Elytis:
“Odysseus Elytis”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/odysseus-elytis
“The Nobel Prize in Literature: Odysseus Elytis”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1979/elytis/biographical/
“Odysseus Elytis, 84, Poet and Nobel Laureate Who Celebrated Greek Myths and Landscape”: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/19/nyregion/odysseus-elytis-84-poet-nobel-laureate-who-celebrated-greekmyths-landscape.html
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One of the most widely-published and highly-acclaimed Jamaican American writers of her generation, poet, playwright and essayist June Jordan was known for her fierce commitment to human rights and political activism. Over a career that produced twenty-seven volumes of poems, essays, libretti, and work for children, Jordan engaged with the fundamental struggles of her era, for civil rights, women’s rights, and sexual freedom.
For more information about June Jordan:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
David Ulin on Jordan, at 28:12: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-085-david-ulin
Mona Eltahawy on Jordan, at 02:28: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-069-mona-eltahawy
Aja Monet on Jordan, at 02:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-050-aja-monet
June Jordan
http://www.junejordan.net
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For more information about this quotation: “‘Two Ears, One Mouth’: Hunting a Proverb from Zeno to Paul’s Mom”: https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/05/15/two-ears-one-mouth-hunting-a-proverb-from-zeno-to-pauls-mom/
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Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
Her books, all published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, FSG published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award forOn Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
From http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/index.shtml
For more information about Susan Sontag:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Maggie Nelson on Sontag, at 19:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-048-maggie-nelson
Rosanne Cash on Sontag, at 12:13: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“How Susan Sontag Taught Me to Think”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/08/magazine/susan-sontag.html
“Susan Sontag, The Art of Fiction No. 143”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1505/the-art-of-fiction-no-143-susan-sontag
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Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges exerted a strong influence on the direction of literary fiction through his genre-bending metafictions, essays, and poetry. Borges was a founder, and principal practitioner, of postmodernist literature, a movement in which literature distances itself from life situations in favor of reflection on the creative process and critical self-examination. Widely read and profoundly erudite, Borges was a polymath who could discourse on the great literature of Europe and America and who assisted his translators as they brought his work into different languages. He was influenced by the work of such fantasists as Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, but his own fiction "combines literary and extra literary genres in order to create a dynamic, electric genre," to quote Alberto Julián Pérez in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Pérez also noted that Borges's work "constitutes, through his extreme linguistic conscience and a formal synthesis capable of representing the most varied ideas, an instance of supreme development in and renovation of narrative techniques. With his exemplary literary advances and the reflective sharpness of his metaliterature, he has effectively influenced the destiny of literature."
For more information about Jorge Luis Borges:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Merve Emre on Borges, at 03:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-170-merve-emre
Susan Orlean on Borges, at 12:13: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-090-susan-orlean
Sjón on Borges, at 16:33: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-068-sjon
Is Borges the 20th Century’s most important writer?- BBC.com
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140902-the-20th-centurys-best-writer
The Other Tiger by Jorge Luis Borges
https://www.theatlantic.com/author/jorge-luis-borges/
Jorge Luis Borges- poetryfoundation.org
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jorge-luis-borges
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Angela Yvonne Davis is one of the most recognized political activists of the 1960s and 1970s. She rose to national attention in 1969 after being removed from her teaching position at the University of California, Los Angeles, for her membership in the Communist Party at the urging of then–California Governor Ronald Reagan. In 1970, Davis was charged as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. Her arrest sparked an international campaign to gain her release. In 1972, after a high-profile trial, she was acquitted of all charges. Davis was the vice-presidential candidate for the Communist Party of the United States in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections.
An advocate for prisoners' rights, she is a founding member of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to abolishing the prison industrial complex. She writes and lectures on social injustice, social movements, and the intersections of race, gender, and class. She has published many books, including Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), Women, Race, and Class (1983), Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday (1999), and Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire (2005).
From https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/collections/angela-y-davis.
For more information about Angela Y. Davis:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ibram X. Kendi about Davis, at 10:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-087-ibram-x-kendi
“Angela Davis Still Believes America Can Change”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/19/t-magazine/angela-davis.html
“A Question of Memory: A Conversation with Angela Y. Davis”: https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/art/one/22172673.html
“Angela Davis: An Interview on the Futures of Black Radicalism”:
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3421-angela-davis-an-interview-on-the-futures-of-black-radicalism
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Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (b. 1813, d. 1855) was a profound and prolific writer in the Danish “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction. Kierkegaard brought this potent mixture of discourses to bear as social critique and for the purpose of renewing Christian faith within Christendom. At the same time he made many original conceptual contributions to each of the disciplines he employed. He is known as the “father of existentialism”, but at least as important are his critiques of Hegel and of the German romantics, his contributions to the development of modernism, his stylistic experimentation, his vivid re-presentation of biblical figures to bring out their modern relevance, his invention of key concepts which have been explored and redeployed by thinkers ever since, his interventions in contemporary Danish church politics, and his fervent attempts to analyse and revitalise Christian faith.
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/.
For more information about Soren Kierkegaard:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Garnette Cadogan about Kierkegaard, at 07:56: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-101-garnette-cadogan
“The Life of a Philosopher for Whom Life Was the Main Question”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/books/clare-carlisle-philosopher-of-the-heart-kierkegaard.html
“Soren Kierkegaard”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/
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Julio Cortázar, pseudonym Julio Denis, (born August 26, 1914, Brussels, Belgium—died February 12, 1984, Paris, France), was an Argentine novelist and short-story writer who combined existential questioning with experimental writing techniques in his works.
Cortázar was the son of Argentine parents and was educated in Argentina, where he taught secondary school and worked as a translator. Bestiario (1951; “Bestiary”), his first short-story collection, was published the year he moved to Paris, an act motivated by dissatisfaction with the government of Juan Perón and what he saw as the general stagnation of the Argentine middle class. He remained in Paris, where he received French citizenship in 1981, though he also kept his Argentine citizenship and remained engaged with political causes in Argentina and Nicaragua. He also traveled widely.
Cortázar’s masterpiece, Rayuela (1963; Hopscotch), is an open-ended novel, or antinovel; the reader is invited to rearrange the different parts of the novel according to a plan prescribed by the author. It was the first of the “boom” of Latin American novels of the 1960s to gain international attention. Cortázar’s other novels were Los premios (1960; Eng. trans. The Winners), 62: modelo para armar (1968; 62: A Model Kit), and Libro de Manuel (1973; A Manual for Manuel). A series of playful and humorous stories that Cortázar wrote between 1952 and 1959 were published in Historias de cronopios y de famas (1962; Cronopios and Famas). His later collections of short stories included Todos los fuegos el fuego (1966; All Fires the Fire, and Other Stories), Un tal Lucas(1979; A Certain Lucas), and Queremos tanto a Glenda, y otros relatos (1981; We Love Glenda So Much, and Other Tales). Cortázar also wrote poetry and plays and published numerous volumes of essays.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julio-Cortazar.
For more information about Julio Cortázar:
“Julio Cortázar, The Art of Fiction No. 83”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2955/the-art-of-fiction-no-83-julio-cortazar
“What Julio Cortázar Might Teach Us About Teaching Writing”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-julio-cortazar-might-teach-us-about-teaching-writing
“The Subtle Radicalism of Julio Cortázar’s Berkeley Lectures”: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/the-subtle-radicalism-of-julio-cortazars-berkeley-lectures/520812/
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Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871 in the Paris suburb of Auteuil. His father, Dr. Adrien Proust, was one of France's most distinguished scientists. His mother, Jeanne Weil, was a well-educated woman who loved the great classic writers of the 17th century, especially Molière and Racine. Marcel's only sibling, Robert, was born in 1873. The hypersensitive Marcel suffered all his life from a number of ailments, especially asthma. Although he earned university degrees in philosophy and law, he always knew that he wanted to be a writer.
In 1910, he had his bedroom lined with cork to block out the deafening noise of daytime Paris because he slept during the day and wrote through the night, after returning home from some of Paris's most exclusive salons. He was known as the city's most famous recluse, he even called himself an owl because he wrote while listening to his “nocturnal Muse.” Swann’s Way, the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, was published in November 1913 and was headed for a fourth printing when World War I broke out.
Proust continued to write, incorporating the unprecedented conflict into his story of contemporary French society. In 1919, Within a Budding Grove was published and won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize. The final three years of his life saw the publication of The Guermantes Way and Sodom and Gomorrah. The Captive, The Fugitive, and Time Regained were published posthumously. The novel's main themes are time and memory and the power of art to withstand the destructive forces of time.
From https://www.proust-ink.com/biography.
For more information about Marcel Proust:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sven Birkerts about Proust, at 18:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-181-sven-bikerts
Merve Emre about Proust, at 16:46: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-170-merve-emre
“What We Find When We Get Lost in Proust”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/what-we-find-when-we-get-lost-in-proust
“A Century of Proust”: http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/02/books/proust-project.html#/#ohara
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Simone Weil, (born February 3, 1909, Paris, France—died August 24, 1943, Ashford, Kent, England), was a French mystic, social philosopher, and activist in the French Resistance during World War II, whose posthumously published works had particular influence on French and English social thought.
To learn the psychological effects of heavy industrial labour, she took a job in 1934–35 in an auto factory, where she observed the spiritually deadening effect of machines on her fellow workers. In 1936 she joined an anarchist unit near Zaragoza, Spain, training for action in the Spanish Civil War, but after an accident in which she was badly scalded by boiling oil, she went to Portugal to recuperate. Soon thereafter Weil had the first of several mystical experiences, and she subsequently came to view her social concerns as “ersatz Divinity.” After the German occupation of Paris during World War II, Weil moved to the south of France, where she worked as a farm servant. She escaped with her parents to the United States in 1942 but then went to London to work with the French Resistance. To identify herself with her French compatriots under German occupation, Weil refused to eat more than the official ration in occupied France. Malnutrition and overwork led to a physical collapse, and during her hospitalization she was found to have tuberculosis. She died after a few months spent in a sanatorium.
Weil’s writings, which were collected and published after her death, fill about 20 volumes. Her most important works are La Pesanteur et la grâce (1947; Gravity and Grace), a collection of religious essays and aphorisms; L’Enracinement (1949; The Need for Roots), an essay upon the obligations of the individual and the state; Attente de Dieu (1950; Waiting for God), a spiritual autobiography; Oppression et Liberté (1955; Oppression and Liberty), a collection of political and philosophical essays on war, factory work, language, and other topics; and three volumes of Cahiers (1951–56; Notebooks). Though born of Jewish parents, Weil eventually adopted a mystical theology that came very close to Roman Catholicism. A moral idealist committed to a vision of social justice, Weil in her writings explored her own religious life while also analyzing the individual’s relation with the state and God, the spiritual shortcomings of modern industrial society, and the horrors of totalitarianism.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-Weil.
For more information about Simone Weil:
Naveen Kishore about Weil, at 15:38: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-007-naveen-kishore
Naomi Shihab Nye about Weil, at 06:17: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
“Simone Weil”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simone-weil/
“Simone Weil for Americans”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/simone-weil-for-americans/
“Simone Weil, by Susan Sontag”: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1963/02/01/simone-weil/
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Appointed United States Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in 2010, William Stanley Merwin had a career that spanned seven decades. A poet, translator, gardener and environmental activist, Merwin has become one of the most widely read and honored poets in America. He died at home at the age of 91, in the house he built, among the thousands of palms he planted, on Friday, March 15, 2019.
Born September 30, 1927, in New York City, William Stanley Merwin was the son of a Presbyterian minister, for whom he began writing hymns at the age of five. He was raised in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and attended Princeton University on a scholarship. As a young man, Merwin went to Europe and developed a love of languages that led to work as a literary translator. Over the years, his poetic voice moved from the more formal to a more distinctly American voice. As the Atlantic Monthly said, “The intentions of Merwin’s poetry are as broad as the biosphere yet as intimate as a whisper. He conveys in the sweet simplicity of grounded language a sense of the self where it belongs, floating between heaven, earth, and the underground.”
He has lived in Majorca, London, France, Mexico and several places in the United States, as well as Boston and New York. In 1976, Merwin moved to Hawaii to study with Robert Aitken, a Zen Buddhist teacher. He married Paula Dunaway, in 1983, and settled on Maui. For over 40 years, they lived in a home that William designed and helped build, surrounded by acres of land once devastated and depleted from years of erosion, logging and toxic agricultural practices. Together, the Merwins painstakingly restored the land into one of the most comprehensive palm gardens in the world. He continued to live, write and garden in Hawaii until he died at home on Friday, March 15th, 2019.
From https://merwinconservancy.org/about-w-s-merwin/
For more information about W. S. Merwin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Wayne Koestenbaum on Merwin, at 09:42: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-166-wayne-koestenbaum
Joy Harjo on Merwin, at 02:52: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-153-joy-harjo
Edward Hirsch on Merwin, at 19:54: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
Naomi Shihab Nye on Merwin, at 24:16: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
“Letters from W. S. Merwin”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/03/25/letters-from-w-s-merwin/
“W. S. Merwin: At Home in the Garden of the Unknown”: https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/arts-culture/2019-04-30/w-s-merwin-at-home-in-the-garden-of-the-unknown
“W. S. Merwin on Hope and What to Do On the Last Day of the World”: https://improvisedlife.com/2020/04/27/w-s-merwin-on-hope-and-what-to-do-on-the-last-day-of-the-world/
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Isaac Bashevis Singer grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw, where the main language was Yiddish. Singer’s father, a rabbi, worked in a yeshiva, an Orthodox Jewish school for the study of sacred texts. Singer began studies to become a rabbi himself but decided to devote his life to writing. He emigrated to the United States in 1935 and settled in New York, where he found work as a writer, journalist and translator. Singer left behind a rich body of work, including about 20 novels and several books for children.
Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote his works in Yiddish. His debut came in 1925 with publication of Af der elter (In Old Age). In several of his works, Singer writes about Polish Jews before the Holocaust. The stories often cover several generations, and many of them describe how modernity, secularism and assimilation affect the families. The stories often feature Jewish folklore and legends. Singer also wrote books for children and his autobiography, In My Father’s Court (1967). Several of the Singers’ works have been adapted for film.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1978/singer/facts/.
For more information about Isaac Bashevis Singer:
“A Guide to Isaac Bashevis Singer”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-guide-to-isaac-bashevis-singer/
“Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Art of Fiction No. 42”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4242/the-art-of-fiction-no-42-isaac-bashevis-singer
Only a handful of details are known about the life of Sappho. She was born around 615 B.C. to an aristocratic family on the Greek island of Lesbos. Evidence suggests that she had several brothers, married a wealthy man named Cercylas, and had a daughter named Cleis. She spent most of her adult life in the city of Mytilene on Lesbos where she ran an academy for unmarried young women. Sappho's school devoted itself to the cult of Aphrodite and Eros, and Sappho earned great prominence as a dedicated teacher and poet. A legend from Ovid suggests that she threw herself from a cliff when her heart was broken by Phaon, a young sailor, and died at an early age. Other historians posit that she died of old age around 550 B.C.
The history of her poems is as speculative as that of her biography. She was known in antiquity as a great poet: Plato called her "the tenth Muse" and her likeness appeared on coins. It is unclear whether she invented or simply refined the meter of her day, but today it is known as "Sapphic" meter. Her poems were first collected into nine volumes around the third century B.C., but her work was lost almost entirely for many years. Merely one twenty-eight-line poem of hers has survived intact, and she was known principally through quotations found in the works of other authors until the nineteenth century. In 1898 scholars unearthed papyri that contained fragments of her poems. In 1914 in Egypt, archeologists discovered papier-mâché coffins made from scraps of paper that contained more verse fragments attributed to Sappho.
Three centuries after her death the writers of the New Comedy parodied Sappho as both overly promiscuous and lesbian. This characterization held fast, so much so that the very term "lesbian" is derived from the name of her home island. Her reputation for licentiousness would cause Pope Gregory to burn her work in 1073. Because social norms in ancient Greece differed from those of today and because so little is actually known of her life, it is difficult to unequivocally answer such claims. Her poems about Eros, however, speak with equal force to men as well as to women.
Sappho is not only one of the few women poets we know of from antiquity, but also is one of the greatest lyric poets from any age. Most of her poems were meant to be sung by one person to the accompaniment of the lyre (hence the name, "lyric" poetry). Rather than addressing the gods or recounting epic narratives such as those of Homer, Sappho's verses speak from one individual to another. They speak simply and directly to the "bittersweet" difficulties of love. Many critics and readers alike have responded to the personal tone and urgency of her verses, and an abundance of translations of her fragments are available today.
From https://poets.org/poet/sappho.
For more information about Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho:
“Tongue breaks”: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n01/emily-wilson/tongue-breaks
“Anne Carson Reads ‘If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho’”: https://www.facebook.com/UChicagoArts/videos/2783158975306093/
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The Grateful Dead is an American rock band that was the incarnation of the improvisational psychedelic music that flowered in and around San Francisco in the mid-1960s. Grateful Dead was one of the most successful touring bands in rock history despite having had virtually no radio hits. The original members were lead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia (b. August 1, 1942, San Francisco, California, U.S.—d. August 9, 1995, Forest Knolls, California), guitarist and vocalist Bob Weir (b. October 16, 1947, San Francisco), keyboard player Ron (“Pigpen”) McKernan (b. September 8, 1945, San Bruno, California—d. March 8, 1973, San Francisco), bassist Phil Lesh (b. March 15, 1940, Berkeley, California), and drummer Bill Kreutzmann (also called Bill Sommers; b. May 7, 1946, Palo Alto, California).
From https://www.britannica.com/topic/Grateful-Dead.
For more information about The Grateful Dead:
“Touch of Grey”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzvk0fWtCs0
“‘A Long Strange Trip’: Insider McNally Writes a History of the Grateful Dead”: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=908773
“When the Parking Lot Is Its Own Strange Trip”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/style/dead-and-company-parking-lot-style.html
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On July 29, 1905, Stanley Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. About his own work, Kunitz has said: “The poem comes in the form of a blessing—‘like rapture breaking on the mind,’ as I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.”
Kunitz published his first book of poetry, Intellectual Things, in 1930. Fourteen years later, he published his second book, Passport to War. His recent books include: The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz (W. W. Norton, 2000); Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected (1995), which won the National Book Award; Next-to-Last Things: New Poems and Essays (1985); The Poems of Stanley Kunitz, 1928-1978, which won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; The Testing-Tree (1971); and Selected Poems, 1928-1958, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
His honors include the Bollingen Prize, a Ford Foundation grant, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, Harvard's Centennial Medal, the Levinson Prize, the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award, a senior fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Medal of the Arts, and the Shelley Memorial Award. In 2000 he was named United States Poet Laureate. Kunitz was deeply committed to fostering community among artists, and was a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Poets House in New York City. Together with his wife, the painter Elise Asher, he split his time between New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts. He died at the age of 100 on May 14, 2006.
From https://poets.org/poet/stanley-kunitz
For more information about Stanley Kunitz:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edward Hirsch on Kunitz, at 04:52: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
“‘I Have Walked Through Many Lives’: Listen to Stanley Kunitz read his poem ‘The Layers’”: https://lithub.com/i-have-walked-through-many-lives-listen-to-stanley-kunitz-read-his-poem-the-layers/
“Stanley Kunitz, The Art of Poetry No. 29”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3185/the-art-of-poetry-no-29-stanley-kunitz
“Poet Stanley Kunitz at 100”: https://www.npr.org/2005/07/29/4776898/poet-stanley-kunitz-at-100
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Born in Palermo, Italy, in 1916, Natalia Ginzburg published her first novella, I Bandini, at the age of eighteen in the distinguished Florentine periodical Solaria. She was the first to translate Marcel Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann into Italian. In 1942 her first novel, La strada che va in città (The Road to the City), was published. In 1963 Ginzburg won the Strega Prize for her own humorous autobiographical work, Lessico Famigliare (Family Sayings), which dealt with her family’s anti-fascist life in Turin. In the 1980s Ginzburg became politically active, joining the Communist Party and being elected to Parliament as an independent left-wing deputy in 1983 and 1987. She died in Rome in 1991 at the age of seventy-five.
From https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ginzburg-natalia.
For more information about Natalia Ginzburg:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Calvin Trillin on Ginzburg, at 06:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-161-calvin-bud-trillin
Maggie Nelson on Ginzburg, at 05:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-048-maggie-nelson
“Rediscovering Natalia Ginzburg”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/rediscovering-natalia-ginzburg
“Reintroducing Natalia Ginzburg, One of the Great Italian Writers of the 20th Century”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/books/review-dry-heart-happiness-as-such-natalia-ginzburg.html
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Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, Slow Learner, a collection of short stories, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, Inherent Vice, and most recently, Bleeding Edge. He received the National Book Award for Gravity’s Rainbow in 1974.
From https://www.nationalbook.org/people/thomas-pynchon/#fullBio.
For more information about Thomas Pynchon:
“On the Thomas Pynchon Trail”: https://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html
“Thomas Pynchon Unmasked”: https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a6465/thomas-pynchon-unmasked/
“Meet Your Neighbor, Thomas Pynchon”:
https://nymag.com/arts/books/features/48268/
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Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation.
Ever since, he has been admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and an ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; the incorporation in his work of popular culture, current events, and vernacular speech; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information. He had a remarkable wit, and often mimicked the writing styles of other poets such as Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, and Henry James. His poetry frequently recounts, literally or metaphorically, a journey or quest, and his travels provided rich material for his verse.
He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen. His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity and the theology of modern Protestant theologians. A prolific writer, Auden was also a noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. Generally considered the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, his work has exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of poets on both sides of the Atlantic. W. H. Auden served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973, and divided most of the second half of his life between residences in New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973.
From https://poets.org/poet/w-h-auden.
For more information about W. H. Auden:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Garnette Cadogan about Auden, at 16:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-101-garnette-cadogan
Ruha Benjamin about Auden, at 13:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-129-ruha-benjamin
“The Messy Genius of W. H. Auden”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/feature/the-messy-genius-w-h-auden
“Remembering W. H. Auden”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/01/20/remembering-wystan-h-auden-who-died-in-the-night-of-the-twenty-eighth-of-september-1973
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Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter whose spare songs carried an existential bite and established him as one of the most distinctive voices of 1970s pop music. Already established as a poet and novelist (his first book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956), Cohen became interested in the Greenwich Village folk scene while living in New York City during the mid-1960s, and he began setting his poems to music. In 1967 Judy Collins recorded two of his songs, “Suzanne” and “Dress Rehearsal Rag,” and that same year Cohen began performing in public, including an appearance at the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival. By the end of the year, he had recorded The Songs of Leonard Cohen, which included the melancholy “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.” That album was followed by Songs from a Room (1969), featuring the now often-covered “Bird on a Wire,” and Songs of Love and Hate (1971).
Though some did not care for Cohen’s baritone voice and deadpan delivery, he mostly enjoyed critical and commercial success. Leonard Cohen: Live Songs (1973) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974) further deepened Cohen’s standing as a songwriter of exceptional emotional power. His career then took a decided turn for the worse with the disappointing Death of a Ladies’ Man (1977), a collaboration with legendary producer Phil Spector, whose grandiose style was ill suited to Cohen’s understated songs. For most of the 1980s Cohen was out of favour, but his 1988 album, I’m Your Man, included the club hits “First We Take Manhattan” and “Everybody Knows” and introduced his songwriting to a new generation. In addition, Various Positions (1984) included what became Cohen’s best-known song, “Hallelujah.” Although it did not initially receive much attention, the single gained widespread popularity when covered by Jeff Buckley in 1994. The ballad was later performed or recorded by hundreds of artists and featured in soundtracks of TV shows and films.
After releasing The Future (1992), he retired to a Buddhist monastery outside Los Angeles. He emerged in 1999 and returned to the studio, producing Ten New Songs (2001) and Dear Heather (2004). Released just weeks before his death, Cohen’s 14th studio album, You Want It Darker (2016), was received by critics as a late-period masterpiece. For the title track, he posthumously received a Grammy Award for best rock performance. In 2008 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2010 he was honoured with a Grammy for lifetime achievement.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Cohen.
For more information about Leonard Cohen:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Salman Rushdie about Cohen, at 35:17: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-168-salman-rushdie
Pico Iyer about Cohen, at 18:18: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-004-pico-iyer
“Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/leonard-cohen-makes-it-darker
“Leonard Cohen”: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/leonard-cohen
“David Lynch: Where do ideas come from?”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxr-7O1Bfxg
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Louise Glück was born in New York City on April 22, 1943, and grew up on Long Island. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014), which won the 2014 National Book Award in Poetry; Averno (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006), a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award in Poetry; and Vita Nova (Ecco Press, 1999), winner of Boston Book Review’s Bingham Poetry Prize and The New Yorker’s Book Award in Poetry. In 2004, Sarabande Books released her six-part poem “October” as a chapbook.
In a review in The New Republic, the critic Helen Vendler wrote: “Louise Glück is a poet of strong and haunting presence. Her poems, published in a series of memorable books over the last twenty years, have achieved the unusual distinction of being neither ‘confessional’ nor ‘intellectual’ in the usual senses of those words.”
The recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, Glück was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. In the fall of 2003, she was appointed as the Library of Congress’s twelfth poet laureate consultant in poetry. She served as judge of the Yale Series of Younger Poets from 2003 to 2010. In 2008, Glück was selected to receive the Wallace Stevens Award for mastery in the art of poetry. Her collection, Poems 1962-2012, was awarded the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2015, she was awarded the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Currently, Glück is a writer-in-residence at Yale University.
From https://poets.org/poet/louise-gluck.
For more information about Louise Glück:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Peter Kimani about Glück, at 17:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-086-peter-kimani
“Louise Glück”: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2020/gluck/facts/
“Afterword”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55238/afterword-56d23699928fe
“Louise Glück: ‘It’s too new...it’s too early here’”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FIFQR56TyQ
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Georges Perec, (born March 7, 1936, Paris, France—died March 3, 1982, Ivry) was a French writer, often called the greatest innovator of form of his generation. Perec was orphaned at an early age: his father was killed in action in World War II, and his mother died in a concentration camp. He was reared by an aunt and uncle and eventually attended the Sorbonne for several years. His best-selling novelLes Choses: une histoire des années soixante (1965; Things: A Story of the Sixties) concerns a young Parisian couple whose personalities are consumed by their material goods. In 1967 he joined the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Workshop of Potential Literature). Known in short as Oulipo, the group dedicated itself to the pursuit of new forms for literature and the revival of old ones, and it had a profound impact on the direction of Perec’s writing.
Perec’s novel La Disparition (1969; A Void) was written entirely without using the letter e, as was its translation. A companion piece of sorts appeared in 1972 with the novella Les Revenentes (“The Ghosts”; published in English as The Exeter Text [1996]), in which every word has only e as its vowel. W; ou, le souvenir d’enfance (1975; W; or, The Memory of Childhood) is considered a masterpiece of innovative autobiography, using alternating chapters to tell two stories that ultimately converge. By far his most ambitious and most critically acclaimed novel is La Vie: mode d’emploi (1978; Life: A User’s Manual), which describes each unit in a large Parisian apartment building and relates the stories of its inhabitants.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georges-Perec.
For more information about Georges Perec:
“The Absolute Originality of Georges Perec”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-absolute-originality-of-georges-perec
“Why Curators and Artists Love the Complex Literature of Georges Perec”: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/author-georges-perec-art-1120154
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One of America’s most admired authors, Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1909. She was educated locally and at Mississippi State College for Women, the University of Wisconsin, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. She is the author of, among many other books, One Writer’s Beginnings, The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, and The Optimist’s Daughter which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. She died in 2001.
From https://www.nationalbook.org/people/eudora-welty/.
For more information about Eudora Welty:
“Portrait in a Minute: Eudora Welty”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ESBm-Dy49A
“The Quiet Greatness of Eudora Welty”: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/marchapril/feature/the-quiet-greatness-eudora-welty
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Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919. She read Classics at Somerville College, Oxford, and after working in the Treasury and abroad, was awarded a research studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge. In 1948 she returned to Oxford as fellow and tutor at St Anne's College and later taught at the Royal College of Art. Until her death in 1999, she lived in Oxford with her husband, the academic and critic, John Bayley. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1987 and in the 1997 PEN Awards received the Gold Pen for Distinguished Service to Literature.
From https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/1006704/iris-murdoch.html?tab=penguin-biography.
For more information about Iris Murdoch:
“Iris Murdoch at 100: ‘Her books are full of passion and disaster’”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/13/iris-murdoch-100-books-full-passion-disaster
“Iris Murdoch, The Art of Fiction No. 117”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2313/the-art-of-fiction-no-117-iris-murdoch
“In Praise of Iris Murdoch”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/books/in-praise-of-iris-murdoch.html
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Herta Müller was born in a farming family living in Nitchidorf, outside Timisoara, Romania. Her family belonged to Romania's German-speaking minority, whose vulnerable position during the communist regime came to color her life and literary works. Müller was dismissed from her position as a translator after refusing to cooperate with the Securitate secret police, becoming a teacher and author instead. Her debut work, Niederungen (Nadirs), was published in Romania as a censored version in 1982, while uncensored copies were distributed abroad. Herta Müller went into exile in Germany in 1987.
Herta Müller's literary works address an individual's vulnerability under oppression and persecution. Her works are rooted in her experiences as one of Romania's German-speaking ethnic minority. Müller describes life under Ceaușescu's regime - how dictatorship breeds a fear and alienation that stays in an individual's mind. Innovatively and with linguistic precision, she evokes images from the past. Müller's literary works are largely prosaic, although she also writes poetry.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2009/muller/facts/
For more information about Herta Müller:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ananya Roy on Müller, at 21:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-106-ananya-roy
Mona Eltahawy on Müller, at 24:53: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-069-mona-eltahawy
“Radka Denemarková on translating Herta Müller”: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/criticism/radka-denemarkova-on-translating-herta-muller/
“Herta Müller, The Art of Fiction No. 225”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6328/the-art-of-fiction-no-225-herta-muller
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OCTAVIA E. BUTLER was a renowned African American author who received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant and PEN West Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work. Born in Pasadena in 1947, she was raised by her mother and her grandmother. She was the author of several award-winning novels including PARABLE OF THE SOWER (1993), which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and PARABLE OF THE TALENTS (1995) winner of the Nebula Award for the best science fiction novel published that year. She was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future.
Though the MacArthur Grant made life easier in later years, she struggled for decades when her dystopian novels exploring themes of Black injustice, global warming, women’s rights and political disparity were, to say the least, not in commercial demand. During these years of obscurity Butler, always an early riser, woke at 2 a.m. every day to write, and then went to work as a telemarketer, potato chip inspector, and dishwasher, among other things.
She passed away on February 24, 2006. At the time of her death, interest in her books was beginning to rise, and in recent years, sales of her books have increased enormously as the issues she addressed in her Afro-Futuristic, feminist novels and short fiction have only become more relevant.
From https://www.octaviabutler.com/theauthor
For more information about Octavia Butler:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Lynell George on Butler, at 17:56: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-021-lynell-george
Johnny Temple on Butler, at 17:21: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-167-johnny-temple
“Octavia Butler: Writing Herself into the Story”: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/07/10/535879364/octavia-butler-writing-herself-into-the-story
“The Essential Octavia Butler”: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/books/review/the-essential-octavia-butler.html
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François-Marie d’Arouet (1694–1778), better known by his pen name Voltaire, was a French writer and public activist who played a singular role in defining the eighteenth-century movement called the Enlightenment. At the center of his work was a new conception of philosophy and the philosopher that in several crucial respects influenced the modern concept of each. Yet in other ways Voltaire was not a philosopher at all in the modern sense of the term. He wrote as many plays, stories, and poems as patently philosophical tracts, and he in fact directed many of his critical writings against the philosophical pretensions of recognized philosophers such as Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes. He was, however, a vigorous defender of a conception of natural science that served in his mind as the antidote to vain and fruitless philosophical investigation. In clarifying this new distinction between science and philosophy, and especially in fighting vigorously for it in public campaigns directed against the perceived enemies of fanaticism and superstition, Voltaire pointed modern philosophy down several paths that it subsequently followed.
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voltaire/.
For more information about Voltaire:
“How Voltaire Went from Bastille Prisoner to Famous Playwright”: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-voltaire-went-bastille-prisoner-famous-playwright-180970854/
“Voltaire”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voltaire/
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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.
Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.
Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings], Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of Songs], and Balaka(1916) [The Flight of Cranes]. The English renderings of his poetry, which include The Gardener(1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The Fugitive (1921), do not generally correspond to particular volumes in the original Bengali; and in spite of its title, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore’s major plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan(1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World], and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents]. Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1913/tagore/biographical/.
For more information about Rabindranath Tagore:
“From the Archive: Rabindranath Tagore”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69232/from-the-archive-rabindranath-tagore
“Poetry and Reason: Why Rabindranath Tagore Still Matters”:
https://newrepublic.com/article/89649/rabindranath-tagore
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Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany, on August 16, 1920, the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. His lack of publishing success at this time caused him to give up writing in 1946 and spurred a ten-year stint of heavy drinking. After he developed a bleeding ulcer, he decided to take up writing again. He worked a wide range of jobs to support his writing, including dishwasher, truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouse worker, shipping clerk, post office clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator. He also worked in a dog biscuit factory, a slaughterhouse, a cake and cookie factory, and he hung posters in New York City subways.
Bukowski published his first story when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. His writing often featured a depraved metropolitan environment, downtrodden members of American society, direct language, violence, and sexual imagery, and many of his works center around a roughly autobiographical figure named Henry Chinaski. His first book of poetry was published in 1959; he went on to publish more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including Pulp (Black Sparrow, 1994), Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993), and The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992). He died of leukemia in San Pedro on March 9, 1994.
From https://poets.org/poet/charles-bukowski
For more information about Charles Bukowski:
“Bukowski at 100: Remembering a Literary Icon”: https://www.npr.org/2020/08/14/902456145/bukowski-at-100-remembering-a-literary-icon
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Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives. She has worked as a film designer and screenplay writer in India. Roy is the author of the novel The God of Small Things, for which she received the 1997 Man Booker Prize. The novel has been translated into dozens of languages worldwide. She has written several non-fiction books, including The Cost of Living, Power Politics, War Talk, An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire and Public Power in the Age of Empire. Roy was featured in the BBC television documentary Dam/age, which is about the struggle against big dams in India. A collection of interviews with Arundhati Roy by David Barsamian was published as The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile. Her newest book, published by Haymarket, is Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers. Roy is the recipient of the 2002 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Prize.
From https://www.thenation.com/authors/arundhati-roy/
For more information about Arundhati Roy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ruha Benjamin on Roy, at 26:46: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-129-ruha-benjamin
Danielle Spencer on Roy, at 28:04: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-172-danielle-spencer
Naomi Klein on Roy, at 42:25: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-158-naomi-klein
George Prochnik on Roy, at 23:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-162-george-prochnik
Sarah Williams on Roy, at 24:43: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-016-sarah-williams
“Arundhati Roy: ‘The pandemic is a portal’”: https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca
“The Prescient Anger of Arundhati Roy”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-prescient-anger-of-arundhati-roy
“Arundhati Roy Sees Delhi as a Novel”: https://aperture.org/editorial/arundhati-roy-sees-delhi-as-a-novel/
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Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated authors in the world. In addition to writing plays, and children’s books, her novels have earned her countless prestigious awards including the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Toni Morrison was born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. In 1949, Morrison decided to attend a historically black institution for her college education. She moved to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University.
After teaching at Howard University for seven years, Morrison moved to Syracuse, New York to become an editor for the textbook division of Random House publishing. Within two years, she transferred to the New York City branch of the company and began to edit fiction and books by African-American authors. Although she worked for a publishing company, Morrison did not publish her first novel called The Bluest Eye until she was 39 years old. Three years later, Morrison published her second novel called Sula, that was nominated for the National Book Award. In 1993, Morrison became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Three years later, she was also chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to give the Jefferson Lecture, and was honored with the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Morrison’s work continued to influence writers and artists through her focus on African American life and her commentary on race relations. Following this, Morrison’s books were featured four times as selections for Oprah’s Book Club. While writing and producing, Morrison was also a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University. Her work earned her an honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Oxford, and the opportunity to be a guest curator at the Louvre museum in Paris. In 2000, she was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress. Morrison also wrote children’s books with her son until his death at 45 years old. Two years later, Morrison published the last book they were working on together and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in that same month. Morrison passed away in 2019 from complications of pneumonia.
From https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/toni-morrison
For more information about Toni Morrison:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Edwidge Danticat on Morrison, at 04:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-018-edwidge-danticat
Ayad Akhtar on Morrison, at 27:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-156-ayad-akhtar
Elizabeth Gilbert on Morrison, at 31:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-155-elizabeth-gilbert
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., on Morrison, at 25:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-104-eddie-s-glaude-jr
Toshi Reagon on Morrison, at 08:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-065-toshi-reagon
Viet Thanh Nguyen on Morrison, at 15:18: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-052
Elizabeth Alexander on Morrison, at 08:51: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-062-elizabeth-alexander
“Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am”: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/toni-morrison-the-pieces-i-am-documentary/16971/
“Toni Morrison and What Our Mothers Couldn’t Say”:
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/toni-morrison-and-what-our-mothers-couldnt-say
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Author, playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was a popular literary figure in late Victorian England. After graduating from Oxford University, he lectured as a poet, art critic and a leading proponent of the principles of aestheticism. In 1891, he published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel which was panned as immoral by Victorian critics, but is now considered one of his most notable works. As a dramatist, many of Wilde’s plays were well received including his satirical comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his most famous play. Unconventional in his writing and life, Wilde’s affair with a young man led to his arrest on charges of "gross indecency" in 1895. He was imprisoned for two years and died in poverty three years after his release at the age of 46.
From https://www.biography.com/writer/oscar-wilde
For more information about Oscar Wilde:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Anand Giridharadas on Wilde, at 23:03: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-063-anand-giridharadas
“Oscar Wilde”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/oscar-wilde
“The Life and Times of Oscar Wilde”: https://bookriot.com/who-was-oscar-wilde/
“How Oscar Wilde Painted Over ‘Dorian Gray’”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/deceptive-picture
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Roland Barthes was born in Cherbourg, France November 12, 1915 to middle class parents. He grew up in Bayonne, France, attended secondary school in Paris, and received degrees in classical letters and grammar and philosophy from the University of Paris. As the leading structuralist thinker, Barthes was highly influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiology — the formal study of signs and signification. He was a prolific interpreter, disseminator, and reviser of most of the complex theoretical concepts that circulated within France’s centres of learning from the 1950s on.
From 1952 to 1959, Barthes worked at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique. He was elected chair of literary semiology at the College de France in 1976 and was acknowledged as the leading critic of his generation in 1978. He was a dominant theoretical voice of the 1970s across Europe and America, making his influence felt in popular culture as well. Barthes died at the age of sixty-four after injuries sustained in a car accident. His works include Writing Degree Zero (1953), Mythologies (1957), Criticism and Truth (1966), S/Z (1972), The Pleasure of the Text (1973), and Image Music Text (1978).
From: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/700_701_web/BarthesLO/biography.html
For more information about Roland Barthes:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Natalie Diaz about Barthes, at 09:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-061-natalie-diaz
“How Roland Barthes Gave Us the TV Recap”: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/magazine/how-roland-barthes-gave-us-the-tv-recap.html
“Where to start reading Roland Barthes”: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/mar/where-to-start-reading-roland-barthes-.html
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Sun Ra was one of the most unusual musicians in the history of jazz, moving from Fletcher Henderson swing to free jazz with ease, sometimes in the same song. Portraying himself as a product of outer space, he "traveled the spaceways" with a colorful troupe of musicians, using a multitude of percussion and unusual instrumentation, from tree drum to celeste.
Sun Ra, who enjoyed cloaking his origins and development in mystery, is known to have studied piano early on with Lula Randolph in Washington, DC. Sun Ra's band became a central part of the early avant-garde jazz movement in Chicago, being one of the first jazz bands to employ electronic instruments (as early as 1956), including electric piano, clavioline, celeste, and synthesizers. In 1960, he moved his band to New York, where he established a communal home for his musicians, known as the Sun Palace. In March 1966, the band began one of its most significant residencies, playing every Monday night at Slug's nightclub on New York's Lower East Side.
By the 1970s, the Sun Ra Arkestra and its various permutations began touring Europe extensively. His performances had by then expanded to include singers, dancers, martial arts practitioners, film, and colorful homemade costumes, becoming a true multimedia attraction. An outsider who linked the African-American experience with ancient Egyptian mythology and outer space, Sun Ra was years ahead of all other avant-garde musicians in his experimentation with sound and instruments, a pioneer in group improvisations and the use of electric instruments in jazz. Since Sun Ra's death, the Arkestra has continued to perform under the direction of Allen.
From https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/sun-ra
For more information about Sun Ra:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Sonny Rollins about Sun Ra, at 15:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-130-sonny-rollins
Angel Bat Dawid about Sun Ra, at 10:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-030-angel-bat-dawid
“A Somewhat Comprehensive Guide of Sun Ra’s Cosmic Jazz”: https://www.vulture.com/2017/10/a-guide-to-legendary-jass-musician-sun-ra.html
“How Sun Ra Taught Us to Believe in the Impossible”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/05/how-sun-ra-taught-us-to-believe-in-the-impossible
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Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes 21 novels, 11 volumes of short stories, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.
Ursula Kroeber was born in 1929 and grew up in Berkeley, California. Her parents were anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and writer Theodora Kroeber, author of Ishi. She attended Radcliffe College and did graduate work at Columbia University. She married historian Charles A. Le Guin, in Paris in 1953; they lived in Portland, Oregon, beginning in 1958, and had three children and four grandchildren. Le Guin died peacefully in her home in January, 2018.
Few American writers have done work of such high quality in so many forms. Her oeuvre comprises 21 novels, 11 volumes of short stories and novellas, six volumes of poetry, 12 children’s books, four collections of essays, and four volumes of translation. Le Guin’s major titles have been translated into 42 languages and have remained in print, often for over half a century. Among many honors her writing received are a National Book Award, nine Hugo Awards, six Nebula Awards, the Howard Vursell Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Malamud Award, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 2000, she was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and in 2016 she joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America. Three of Le Guin’s books have been finalists for the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
From: https://www.ursulakleguin.com/biography
For more information about Ursula Le Guin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Naomi Klein about Le Guin, at 14:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-158-naomi-klein
Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal about Le Guin, at 25:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-019-tracy-rosenthal
“Ursula Le Guin - National Book”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk
“Ursula K. Le Guin, The Art of Fiction No. 221”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6253/the-art-of-fiction-no-221-ursula-k-le-guin
“The Fantastic Ursula K. Le Guin”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-fantastic-ursula-k-le-guin
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The French essayist and philosopher, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) pioneered the essay style of writing principal philosophical work, Essay’s, in which he used self-portrayal as a mirror of humanity.
In his essay On the Education of Children, Montaigne advocated for an individualized learning environment where children were encouraged to learn through experience and to question and alter the ideas they learn in books, making these ideas their own.
This notion was new at the time and differed largely from what was then the contemporary method of education; having children read the classics and accept them as truth without learning to make their own judgments or expand on ideas.
For more information about Montaigne:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Wayne Koestenbaum about Montaigne, at 26:48: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-166-wayne-koestenbaum
Simon Critchley about Montaigne, at 05:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-008-simon-critchley
Lena Herzog about Montaigne: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-103-lena-herzog?t=4m54s
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/montaigne/
The New Yorker Magazine, Me, Myself and I; What Made Michel de Montaigne the First Modern Man, by Jane Kramer
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/me-myself-and-i
The #schooloflife YouTube:
PHILOSOPHY - Montaigne
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Tom Waits has built a career as varied as there are creative outlets—delving into cinema (both composing and acting), musical theater, opera, live performance, and literature—yet seamlessly interweaving a truly distinctive and fully-realized persona. The tools of his trade have included such things as the marimba, trombone, brake drum, metal aunglongs, banjo, bell plate, bullhorn, conga, accordion, optigon, mellotron, maracas, pump organ, basstarda, chamberlain, harmonium, viola, sticks, chairs, a musical saw, as well as the regular old guitar, bass, piano and drums and, of course, his trademark gravelly voice.
For more information about Tom Waits:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elizabeth Gilbert on Waits, at 27:53: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-155-elizabeth-gilbert
Sunita Puri on Waits, at 11:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-108-sunita-puri
Naomi Shihab Nye on Waits, at 22:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
Tom Waits Website: http://www.tomwaits.com
More Than Rain performed by Tom Waits: https://youtu.be/pUB1uMZgYoI
A Brief History of John Baldessari, featuring Tom Waits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU7V4GyEuXA
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Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Dickinson’s poetry was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town, which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity.
She admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well as John Keats. Though she was dissuaded from reading the verse of her contemporary Walt Whitman by rumors of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice. While Dickinson was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.
From https://poets.org/poet/emily-dickinson
For more information about Emily Dickinson:
“Emily Dickinson”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson
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Born on the island of Martinique under French colonial rule, Frantz Omar Fanon (1925–1961) was one of the most important writers in black Atlantic theory in an age of anti-colonial liberation struggle. His work drew on a wide array of poetry, psychology, philosophy, and political theory, and its influence across the global South has been wide, deep, and enduring. In his lifetime, he published two key original works: Black Skin, White Masks (Peau noire, masques blancs) in 1952 and The Wretched of the Earth (Les damnés de la terre) in 1961. Collections of essays, A Dying Colonialism (L’an V de la révolution Algérienne 1959) and Toward the African Revolution (Pour la revolution Africaine), posthumously published in 1964, round out a portrait of a radical thinker in motion, moving from the Caribbean to Europe to North Africa to sub-Saharan Africa and transforming his thinking at each stop. The 2015 collection of his unpublished writings, Écrits sur l’aliénation et la liberté, will surely expand our understanding of the origins and intellectual context of Fanon’s thinking.
Fanon engaged the fundamental issues of his day: language, affect, sexuality, gender, race and racism, religion, social formation, time, and many others. His impact was immediate upon arrival in Algeria, where in 1953 he was appointed to a position in psychiatry at Bilda-Joinville Hospital. His participation in the Algerian revolutionary struggle shifted his thinking from theorizations of blackness to a wider, more ambitious theory of colonialism, anti-colonial struggle, and visions for a postcolonial culture and society. Fanon published in academic journals and revolutionary newspapers, translating his radical vision of anti-colonial struggle and decolonization for a variety of audiences and geographies, whether as a young academic in Paris, a member of the Algeria National Liberation Front (FLN), Ambassador to Ghana for the Algerian provisional government, or revolutionary participant at conferences across Africa. Following a diagnosis and short battle with leukemia, Fanon was transported to Bethesda, Maryland (arranged by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) for treatment and died at the National Institute for Health facility on December 6, 1961.
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/
For more information about Fanon:
“Frantz Fanon”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/
“The Revolutionary Humanism of Frantz Fanon”: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/humanism-frantz-fanon-philosophy-revolutionary-algeria
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Tristan Tzara (born 1896, Moineşti, Rom.—died December 1963, Paris) was a Romanian-born French poet and essayist known mainly as the founder of Dada, a nihilistic revolutionary movement in the arts, the purpose of which was the demolition of all the values of modern civilization.
The Dadaist movement originated in Zürich during World War I, with the participation of the artists Jean Arp, Francis Picabia, and Marcel Duchamp. Tzara wrote the first Dada texts—La Première Aventure céleste de Monsieur Antipyrine (1916; “The First Heavenly Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine”) and Vingtcinq poèmes (1918; “Twenty-Five Poems”)—and the movement’s manifestos, Sept Manifestes Dada (1924; “Seven Dada Manifestos”). In Paris he engaged in tumultuous activities with André Breton, Philippe Soupault, and Louis Aragon to shock the public and to disintegrate the structures of language.
In about 1930, weary of nihilism and destruction, he joined his friends in the more constructive activities of Surrealism. He devoted much time to the reconciliation of Surrealism and Marxism and joined the Communist Party in 1936 and the French Resistance movement during World War II. These political commitments brought him closer to his fellowmen, and he gradually matured into a lyrical poet. His poems revealed the anguish of his soul, caught between revolt and wonderment at the daily tragedy of the human condition. His mature works started with L’Homme approximatif (1931; “The Approximate Man”) and continued with Parler seul (1950; “Speaking Alone”) and La Face intérieure(1953; “The Inner Face”). In these, the anarchically scrambled words of Dada were replaced with a difficult but humanized language.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tristan-Tzara
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o about Tzara, at 04:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-137-ngg-wa-thiongo
For more information about Tristan Tzara:
“How to Make a Dadaist Poem”: https://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/tzara.html
“Tristan Tzara exhibition: the man who made dada”: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/28/dada-tristan-tzara-avant-garde-exhibition
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Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She is serving her second term as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States.
The author of nine books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise, several plays and children's books, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice, her many honors include the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets Wallace Stevens Award, two NEA fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. As a musician and performer, Harjo has produced six award-winning music albums including her newest, I Pray for My Enemies (Sunyata Records). She is Executive Editor of the anthology When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through — A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry and the editor of Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, the companion anthology to her signature Poet Laureate project. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
For more information about Harjo:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Natalie Diaz about Joy Harjo, at 16:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-061-natalie-diaz
“Joy Harjo reads her poem ‘Running’”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8vwqWJsJiI
“The Quarantine Tapes 153: Joy Harjo”: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-153-joy-harjo
“Joy Harjo on how a new Native poetry anthology fills a gap in American literature”: https://artscanvas.org/books/joy-harjo-on-how-a-new-native-poetry-anthology-fills-a-gap-in-american-literature
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Considered the founder of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky is one of the most cited scholars in modern history. Among his groundbreaking books are “Syntactic Structures”, “Language and Mind,” “Aspects of the Theory of Syntax,” and “The Minimalist Program,” each of which has made distinct contributions to the development of the field. He has received numerous awards, including the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal and the Ben Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science.
Chomsky introduced the Chomsky hierarchy, generative grammar and the concept of a universal grammar, which underlies all human speech and is based in the innate structure of the mind/brain. Chomsky has not only transformed the field of linguistics, his work has influenced fields such as cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, computer science, mathematics, childhood education, and anthropology.
Chomsky is also one of the most influential public intellectuals in the world. He has written more than 100 books, his most recent being “Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power.”
From https://linguistics.arizona.edu/user/noam-chomsky.
For more information about Chomsky:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Tim Robbins about Chomsky, at 23:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-113-tim-robbins
Wallace Shawn about Chomsky, at 07:45: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-193-wallace-shawn
“Dismantle All of This Stuff: A Conversation with Noam Chomsky”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dismantle-all-of-this-stuff-a-conversation-with-noam-chomsky/
“Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Human Nature and Joe Biden”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-noam-chomsky.html
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Mary Oliver was born on September 10, 1935, in Maple Heights, Ohio. In the mid-1950s, Oliver attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College, though she did not receive a degree. Her first collection of poems, No Voyage, and Other Poems, was published in 1963. She went on to publish more than fifteen collections of poetry.
Oliver, who cited Walt Whitman as an influence, is best known for her awe-filled, often hopeful, reflections on and observations of nature. Her honors include an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, a Lannan Literary Award, the Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Oliver held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College until 2001. She lived for over forty years in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with her partner Molly Malone Cook, a photographer and gallery owner. After Cook's death in 2005, Oliver later moved to the southeastern coast of Florida. Oliver died of cancer at the age of eighty-three in Hobe Sound, Florida, on January 17, 2019.
From https://poets.org/poet/mary-oliver.
For more information about Mary Oliver:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Jacqueline Novogratz about Oliver, at 0:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-178-jacqueline-novogratz
“Mary Oliver: Listening to the World”: https://onbeing.org/programs/mary-oliver-listening-to-the-world/
“Mary Oliver Helped Us Stay Amazed”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/mary-oliver-helped-us-stay-amazed
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The Black feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, warrior Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a native New Yorker and daughter of immigrants. Both her activism and her published work speak to the importance of struggle for liberation among oppressed peoples and of organizing in coalition across differences of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, age and ability. An internationally recognized activist and artist, Audre Lorde was the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit, which conferred the mantle of New York State poet for 1991-93. In designating her New York State’s Poet Laureate, Governor Mario Cuomo observed: “Her imagination is charged by a sharp sense of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice…She cries out against it as the voice of indignant humanity. Audre Lorde is the voice of the eloquent outsider who speaks in a language that can reach and touch people everywhere.”
From https://alp.org/about/audre
For more information on Audre Lorde:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Aja Monet about Lorde, at 24:20: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-050-aja-monet
“The Legacy of Audre Lorde”: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/09/17/the-legacy-of-audre-lorde/
“Audre Lorde Broke the Silence”: https://newrepublic.com/article/161595/audre-lorde-warrior-poet-cancer-journals
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James Baldwin — the grandson of a slave — was born in Harlem in 1924. The oldest of nine children, he grew up in poverty, developing a troubled relationship with his strict, religious stepfather. In 1948, at age 24, Baldwin left for Paris, where he hoped to find enough distance from the American society he grew up in to write about it.
Over the next ten years, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul, writing two books of essays, Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Nobody Knows My Name (1961), as well as two novels, Giovanni’s Room (1956) and Another Country (1962). In the early 1960s, overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility to the times, Baldwin returned to take part in the civil rights movement. Traveling throughout the South, he began work on an explosive work about black identity and the state of racial struggle, The Fire Next Time (1963). This, too, was a bestseller: so incendiary that it put Baldwin on the cover of TIME Magazine. For many, Baldwin’s clarion call for human equality – in the essays of Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time – became an early and essential voice in the civil rights movement.
By 1987, when he died of stomach cancer at age 63, James Baldwin had become one of the most important and vocal advocates for equality. From Go Tell It on the Mountain to The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985), James Baldwin created works of literary beauty and depth that will remain essential parts of the American canon.
From https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/james-baldwin-about-the-author/59/.
For more information about James Baldwin:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., about Baldwin, at 03:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-104-eddie-s-glaude-jr
Nathalie Etoke about Baldwin, at 01:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-176-nathalie-etoke
“Sunday Reading: Celebrating James Baldwin”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-celebrating-james-baldwin
“An Introduction to James Baldwin”: https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/introduction-james-baldwin
“The Best of James Baldwin: Favorite Pieces from the NPR Archive”: https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/1003333020/the-best-of-james-baldwin-favorite-pieces-from-the-npr-archive
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Naomi Shihab Nye is the Young People's Poet Laureate (Poetry Foundation), the Poetry Editor for the New York Times Magazine, on faculty at Texas State University,
and author or editor of more than 30 books. She was selected by the National Book Critics Circle to receive the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, 2020.
For more information about Naomi Shihab Nye:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Nye on The Quarantine Tapes: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-073-naomi-shihab-nye
Edward Hirsch about Nye, at 18:00: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-173-edward-hirsch
“Kindness,” by Naomi Shihab Nye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFLQOOiAqxQ
“The Young People’s Poet Laureate”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/150463/the-young-people39s-poet-laureate
“On Being with Krista Tippett: Naomi Shihab Nye”: https://onbeing.org/programs/naomi-shihab-nye-before-you-know-kindness-as-the-deepest-thing-inside/
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Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva (also Marina Cvetaeva and Marina Tsvetayeva) was born in Moscow. During her lifetime she wrote poems, verse plays, and prose pieces; she is considered one of the most renowned poets of 20th-century Russia. Tsvetaeva’s life coincided with turbulent years in Russian history. She married Sergei Efron in 1912; they had two daughters and later one son. Efron joined the White Army, and Tsvetaeva was separated from him during the Civil War. She had a brief love affair with Osip Mandelstam, and a longer relationship with Sofia Parnok. During the Moscow famine, Tsvetaeva was forced to place her daughters in a state orphanage, where the younger, Irina, died of hunger in 1919. In 1922 she emigrated with her family to Berlin, then to Prague, settling in Paris in 1925. In Paris, the family lived in poverty. Sergei Efron worked for the Soviet secret police, and Tsvetaeva was shunned by the Russian expatriate community of Paris. Through the years of privation and exile, poetry and contact with poets sustained Tsvetaeva. She corresponded with Rainer Maria Rilke and Boris Pasternak, and she dedicated work to Anna Akhmatova.
In 1939 Tsvetaeva returned to the Soviet Union. Efron was executed, and her surviving daughter was sent to a labor camp. When the German army invaded the USSR, Tsvetaeva was evacuated to Yelabuga with her son. She hanged herself on August 31, 1941.
Critics and translators of Tsvetaeva’s work often comment on the passion in her poems, their swift shifts and unusual syntax, and the influence of folk songs. She is also known for her portrayal of a woman’s experiences during the “terrible years” (as the period in Russian history was described by Aleksandr Blok). Collections of Tsvetaeva’s poetry translated into English include Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Elaine Feinstein (1971, 1994). She is the subject of several biographies as well as the collected memoirs No Love Without Poetry (2009), by her daughter Ariadna Efron (1912–1975).
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marina-tsvetaeva.
For more information about Marina Tsvetaeva:
“Translator’s Note: Eight Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/145547/translator39s-note-ldquoan-attempt-at-jealousyrdquo-by-marina-tsvetaeva
“Tsvetaeva: The Tragic Life”: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2003/02/13/tsvetaeva-the-tragic-life/
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In describing Henry Rollins, the tendency is to try to squeeze as many labels as possible into a single sentence. “Rollins is many things,” says The Washington Post, “diatribist, confessor, provocateur, humorist, even motivational speaker…his is an enthusiastic and engaging chatter.” Entertainment Weekly’s list includes “Punk Rock icon. Spoken word poet. Actor. Author. DJ. Is there anything this guy can’t do?” TV Guide has more concisely called him a “Renaissance Man” but if Henry Rollins could be reduced to a single word, that word would undoubtedly be “workaholic.” When he’s not traveling, Rollins prefers to keep a relentless schedule full of work, with gigs as an actor, author, DJ, voice-over artist and TV show host to name a few of the roles that keep his schedule full. Rollins has toured the world as a spoken word artist, as frontman for both Rollins Band and Black Flag and as a solitary traveler with insatiable curiosity, favoring road-less-traveled locales in places such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Siberia, North Korea, South Sudan and Iran.
For more information about Henry Rollins:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Johnny Temple on Rollins, at 04:35: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-167-johnny-temple
Henry Rollins: https://www.henryrollins.com
The Quarantine Tapes with Henry Rollins and Paul Holdengräber:
https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/quarantine-tapes-001-henry-rollins
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Poet and activist Warsan Shire grew up in London. She is the author of the collections Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (flipped eye, 2011), Her Blue Body (flipped eye, 2015), Our Men Do Not Belong to Us (Slapering Hol Press and Poetry Foundation, 2015), and Bless The Daughter Raised By A Voice In Her Head (Random House, forthcoming 2021). Her poems have appeared in journals and magazines, including Poetry Review, Wasafiri, and Sable LitMag; in the anthologies Salt Book of Younger Poets (2011), Long Journeys: African Migrants on the Road (2013), and Poems That Make Grown Women Cry (2016); as well as in Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade (2016) and film Black Is King (2020).
According to Alexis Okeowo in the New Yorker, Shire’s work “embodies the kind of shape-shifting, culture-juggling spirit lurking in most people who can’t trace their ancestors to their country’s founding fathers, or whose ancestors look nothing like those fathers. In that limbo, Shire conjures up a new language for belonging and displacement.” Shire’s poems connect gender, war, sex, and cultural assumptions; in her work, poetry is a healing agent for the trauma of exile and suffering. In an interview, Shire noted, “Character driven poetry is important for me—it’s being able to tell the stories of those people, especially refugees and immigrants, that otherwise wouldn’t be told, or they’ll be told really inaccurately. And I don’t want to write victims, or martyrs, or vacuous stereotypes … my family are really amazing—they’ll tell me, ‘I have a new story for you,’ and I’ll get my Dictaphone and record it, so I can stay as true as possible to the story before I make it into a poem.”
Shire has read her work in South Africa, Italy, Germany, and the United States. In 2013, she won Brunel University’s first African Poetry Prize. In 2014, she was named the first Young Poet Laureate for London and chosen as poet-in-residence for Queensland, Australia. In 2017 she was included in the Penguin Modern Poets series. In 2019 she wrote the short film Brave Girl Rising,narrated by Tess Thompson and David Oyelowo, and became the youngest person to ever be inducted into the Royal Society of Literature.
Shire is poetry editor of Spook Magazine and guest edited Young Sable LitMag.
For more information about Warsan Shire:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Suketu Mehta on Shire, at 09:18: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-079-suketu-mehta
Tim Robbins on Shire, at 07:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-113-tim-robbins
Home read by Warsan Shire: "Home" by Warsan Shire
NY Times: Warsan Shire, the Woman Who Gave Poetry to Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/arts/music/warsan-shire-who-gave-poetry-to-beyonces-lemonade.html
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Isak Dinesen is the pseudonym of Karen Blixen, born in Denmark in 1885. After her marriage in 1914 to Baren Bror Blixen, she and her husband lived in British East Africa, where they owned a coffee plantation. She divorced from her husband in 1921 but continued to manage the plantation for another ten years, until the collapse of the coffee market forced her to sell the property and return to Denmark in 1931. There she began to write in English under the nom de plume Isak Dinesen. Her first book, and literary success, was Seven Gothic Tales. It was followed by Out of Africa, The Angelic Avengers (written under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel), Winter’s Tales, Last Tales, Anecdotes of Destiny, Shadows on the Grass, and Ehrengard. She died in 1962.
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/7105/isak-dinesen/.
For more information about Isak Dinesen:
“Isak Dinesen, The Art of Fiction No. 14”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4911/the-art-of-fiction-no-14-isak-dinesen
“Margaret Atwood on the show-stopping Isak Dinesen”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/29/margaret-atwood-isak-dinesen
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C.P. Cavafy is widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century. He was born on April 29, 1863, in Alexandria, Egypt, where his Greek parents had settled in the mid-1850s, and died on the same day in 1933. During his lifetime Cavafy was an obscure poet, living in relative seclusion and publishing little of his work. A short collection of his poetry was privately printed in the early 1900s and reprinted with new verse a few years later, but that was the extent of his published poetry. Instead, Cavafy chose to circulate his verse among friends.
Cavafy is the leading poet of the periphery, writing in Greek far from Greek lands. The body of his poetry includes the 154 poems of the “canon”; 37 “repudiated poems,” most of which are juvenilia written in romantic katharevousa; 75 “hidden” poems that were found finished in his papers; and 30 “unfinished” poems. His poems often feature historical figures or creations of the poet’s imagination, with frequent references to elements of Homeric, Hellenistic, and Byzantine years. Today, his poetry occupies a prominent place in both Greek and world literature.
You may read the complete C. P. Cavafy bio here
https://cavafy.onassis.org/creator/cavafy-c-p/
and discover the digital collection of the Cavafy Archive here
https://cavafy.onassis.org/.
For more information about C. P. Cavafy:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes: Daniel Mendelsohn about Cavafy, at 11:50
“The Cavafy Dossier”
“C.P. Cavafy: Complete Poems”
“Ithaka”: Ithaka – Onassis Foundation
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Upton Sinclair was a famous novelist and social crusader from California, who pioneered the kind of journalism known as "muckraking." His best-known novel was "The Jungle" which was an expose of the appalling and unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry. "The Jungle" was influential in obtaining passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act.
Sinclair's interests ranged over a wide variety of topics, in his many books and articles. He would receive a Pulitzer Prize for a later novel about Hitler's rise to power. His contemporary, the writer Edmund Wilson, would say of him: "Practically alone among the American writers of his generation, [Sinclair] put to the American public the fundamental questions raised by capitalism in such a way that they could not escape them."
From https://www.ssa.gov/history/sinclair.html.
For more information about Upton Sinclair:
“Upton Sinclair, Whose Muckraking Changed the Meat Industry”: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/obituaries/archives/upton-sinclair-meat-industry
“Upton Sinclair’s Losses and Triumphs”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/28/uppie-redux
The quotation's first time in print: https://twitter.com/_ianboyden/status/1448396720090480643?s=11
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Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, CA in 1934, the daughter of an officer in the Army Air Corps. A shy, bookish child, Didion spent her teenage years typing out Ernest Hemingway stories to learn how sentences work. She attended the University of California, Berkeley where she got a degree in English and won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. The prize was a research assistant job at the magazine where Didion would work for more than a decade, eventually working her way up to an associate features editor. During this time she wrote for various other magazines and published her first novel, a tragic story about murder and betrayal, called RUN RIVER in 1963. The following year she married fellow writer John Gregory Dunne and the two moved to Los Angeles. The couple adopted a daughter whom they named Quintana Roo after the state in southern Mexico.
Didion’s first volume of essays, entitled SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM, was published in 1968 and was a collection of her feelings about the counterculture of the 1960s. The New York Times referred to it as “a rich display of some of the best prose written today in this country.” Her critically acclaimed second novel PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (1970) was about a fading starlet whose dissatisfaction with Hollywood leads her further and further away from reality. Herself engaging in the Hollywood lifestyle, Didion would go on to co-write four screenplays with her husband: PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971), PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (1972, based on her novel), A STAR IS BORN, (1981) and UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL (1996). A second book of essays, THE WHITE ALBUM, was published in 1979 about life in the late 1960s and the 1970s.
Throughout the years Didion has written many more essay collections on subjects that have swayed her. Her fascination with America’s relations with its southern neighbors could be seen in SALVADOR (1983) and MIAMI (1987). POLITICAL FICTIONS (2001) focuses on her thoughts on American politics and government. Didion and her family moved back to New York in the 1980s, and her observations of the city can be read in AFTER HENRY (1992). She reflects on California’s past and present in her 2003 collection WHERE I WAS FROM.
Joan Didion’s husband died in 2003. Didion wrote about the grief she felt at Dunne’s death in THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING (2005). The book has been called “a masterpiece of two genres: memoir and investigative journalism,” and won the National Book Award in 2005. Sadly, also in 2005, Didion lost Quintana Roo to acute pancreatitis. Didion wrote a memoir about the loss of her daughter called BLUE NIGHTS, which was published in 2011.
Didion’s work, which has been associated with the “New Journalism” movement, has been recognized on many occasions. She received the American Academy of Arts & Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters in 2005 and won the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2007. She is a member of the Academy of Arts & Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and The Berkeley Fellows. She received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Harvard University in 2009 and an honorary degree from Yale in 2011. In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Obama, and the PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
From https://www.thejoandidion.com/about.
For more information about Joan Didion:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
David Ulin about Didion, at 18:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-085-david-ulin
“‘After Life’ by Joan Didion”: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/magazine/after-life.html
“What We Get Wrong About Joan Didion”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/01/what-we-get-wrong-about-joan-didion
“Joan Didion, The Art of Fiction No. 71”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3439/the-art-of-fiction-no-71-joan-didion
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Albert Einstein was born in 1879 in Ulm, Germany. He was the first child born to Hermann and Pauline Einstein. Though he attended school as a young boy, he also received instruction at home on Judaism and violin. By the age of twelve he had taught himself geometry. At the age of sixteen he failed an exam in order to qualify to train as an electrical engineer. He remained in school and developed a new plan for his future. Einstein decided to study math and physics so he could become a teacher. Einstein thought he would be good at this because he could think mathematically and abstractly while lacking imagination and practicality. In 1896 he renounced his German citizenship. He was not a citizen of any country until 1901 when he became a citizen of Switzerland. In 1900 he graduated as a teacher of math and physics. His teachers did not think very highly of him though so he had difficulty being recommended for a job at a university. In 1901 he took a job as a temporary high school teacher and married Mileva Maritsch. The couple had two sons prior to divorcing. Einstein later married his cousin Elsa Einstein. From 1902 through 1909, Einstein worked in a patent office in Bern, Switzerland. While working in the patent office he published many papers on theoretical physics. He earned a Ph.D. in 1905.
In 1905 Einstein wrote a paper on what is now known as the special theory of relativity. This paper contained two hypotheses. The first stated that the laws of physics had to have the same form in any frame of reference. The second hypothesis stated that the speed of light was a constant. Later that year Einstein also showed how mass and energy were equivalent. Following an impressive few years of work, Einstein became a lecturer at the University of Bern. In 1909 he finally got a post at a university when he became a faculty member at the University of Zurich. In 1911 Einstein taught at Carl-Ferdinand University in Prague. The following year he returned to Germany to continue his work. In 1916 Einstein published his general theory of relativity. This theory linked gravitation, acceleration and the four dimensional space-time. With this theory he was able to account for the variations in the orbital motions of the planets. He also predicted that starlight in the vicinity of a massive object such as the Sun could be bent. This was confirmed in 1919 during a solar eclipse. This further increased the adulation with which the press viewed Einstein. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his work on the photoelectric effect. This work proposed that light be considered as consisting of particles called photons. Einstein further proposed that the energy the photon contains is proportional to the frequency of the radiation.
Einstein was not only a scientist, but also a social activist and a humanitarian. He spoke out against the German involvement in World War I. In 1920 a demonstration interrupted a lecture given by Einstein in Berlin. There was also growing criticism of his work by certain Germans. Einstein felt the disruptions and criticisms were occurring because he was Jewish. Einstein traveled the world lecturing and raising funds for a planned Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His hectic lifestyle led to a physical collapse in 1928. By 1930 he was once again travelling the world, especially the United States. On one of these visits, he was offered a post with the Institute for Advanced Study near Princeton University. Einstein accepted, believing that he would spend seven months of the year in Munich and five months of the year in the United States. In December of 1932 he left for the United States. A month after his departure the Nazis assumed control of Germany. Einstein never returned to Germany. In 1935 Einstein was granted permanent residency in the United States and became a citizen in 1940. In 1944 he hand wrote his 1905 theory on relativity and allowed it to be auctioned. It sold for six million dollars, which he donated to the effort to win World War II. The work resides in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. By 1949 Einstein was in failing health. His health was so bad that when offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 he had to decline it. In 1955, one week prior to his death, he agreed to have his name appear on a manifesto calling for the end to nuclear weapons. He died in April of 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey. Einstein was cremated and his ashes were spread at an undisclosed location.
From https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/einstein.html.
For more information about Albert Einstein:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Melody Wainscott about Einstein, at 09:30: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-009-melody-wainscott
“The Year of Albert Einstein”:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-year-of-albert-einstein-75841381/
“Did Einstein really say that?”:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05004-4
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Adam Phillips (born 1954) is a British child psychotherapist, literary critic and essayist. He is known for his books dealing with topics related to psychoanalysis, including On Kissing, Being Bored and Going Sane. His book of essays, Side Effects, explores the relationship between literature and psychoanalysis. Phillips is also the general editor of the second Penguin edition of the selected works of Sigmund Freud and a contributor to the London Review of Books.
From https://www.ndbooks.com/author/adam-phillips/.
For more information about Adam Phillips:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Elizabeth Gilbert on Phillips, at 25:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-155-elizabeth-gilbert
Andrew Solomon on Phillips, at 08:53: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-114-andrew-solomon
“Against Self-Criticism”: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n05/adam-phillips/against-self-criticism
“Adam Phillips: A Life in Writing”: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/01/adam-phillips-life-in-writing
“ “: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6286/the-art-of-nonfiction-no-7-adam-phillips
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Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) is the author of the classic novels Brave New World, Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles, California.
From https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/aldous-huxley.
For more information about Aldous Huxley:
“Brave New LA: Aldous Huxley in Los Angeles”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/aldous-huxley-in-los-angeles/
“Aldous Huxley, The ARt of Fiction No. 24”:
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4698/the-art-of-fiction-no-24-aldous-huxley
Frank Zappa (born December 21, 1940, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.—died December 4, 1993, Los Angeles, California) was an American composer, guitarist, and satirist of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Zappa was, in no apparent order, a first-rate cultural gadfly dedicated to upsetting American suburban complacency and puncturing the hypocrisy and pretensions of both the U.S. political establishment and the counterculture that opposed it; a contemporary orchestral composer uncompromisingly rooted in 20th-century avant-garde tradition; a rock bandleader who put together a series of stellar ensembles both under the rubric of the Mothers of Invention and under his own name; an erudite lover of the most esoteric traditions of rock and roll and of rhythm and blues; an innovative record producer whose use of high-speed editing techniques predated the later innovations of hip-hop; and one of the premier electric guitar improvisers of a generation that included Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck. One of the great polymaths of the rock era who, arguably, possessed a broader range of skills and interests than any of his peers, he was an instinctive postmodernist who demolished the barriers and hierarchies separating “high” and “low” culture.
Zappa was a prolific workaholic who released more than 60 albums in his 30-year career. Zappa was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and he was a 1997 recipient of the Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. His life was chronicled in the documentaries Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words (2016) and Zappa (2020).
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frank-Zappa.
For more information about Frank Zappa:
“The Treasure in Frank Zappa’s Secret Subterranean Vault”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/07/the-treasure-in-frank-zappas-secret-subterranean-vault
“The Rolling Stone Interview: Frank Zappa”: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-rolling-stone-interview-frank-zappa-81967/
Derek Jarman (1942-1994) was a legendary English artist and filmmaker, best known for his avant-garde art films and also renowned as a set designer, gardener, author and gay rights activist.
From https://filmlondon.org.uk/flamin/about-derek-jarman.
For more information about Derek Jarman:
“Reading Derek Jarman is Strangely Consoling”: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/reading-derek-jarman-is-strangely-consoling
“Planted in Sickness, Derek Jarman’s Garden Still Gives Joy”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/movies/derek-jarman-garden-prospect-cottage.html
“Derek Jarman: A Saint in the Garden”: https://gagosian.com/quarterly/2020/10/01/essay-derek-jarman-saint-garden/
Anne Carson was born in Toronto, Ontario on June 21, 1950. With the help of a high school Latin instructor, she learned ancient Greek, which contributed to her continuing interest in classical and Hellenic literature. She attended St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto and, despite leaving twice, received her BA in 1974, her MA in 1975 and her PhD in 1981. She also studied Greek metrics for a year at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Since bursting onto the international poetry scene in 1987 with her long poem “Kinds of Water," Carson has published numerous books of poetry, including Float (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016); Red Doc> (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013); The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry;Autobiography of Red (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998); and Short Talks (Brick Books, 1992). Also a Classics scholar, Carson is the translator of Electra (Oxford University Press, 2001), If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (Knopf, 2002), and An Oresteia (Faber and Faber, 2009), among others. She is also the author of Eros the Bittersweet (Princeton University Press, 1986).
Her awards and honors include the Lannan Literary Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the MacArthur Fellowship. She was also the Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany. Carson was the Director of Graduate Studies in Classics at McGill University and taught at Princeton University from 1980-1987. She has also taught classical languages and literature at Emory University, California College of the Arts, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. She currently teaches in New York University’s creative writing program.
From https://poets.org/poet/anne-carson.
For more information about Anne Carson:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Simon Critchley on Carson, at 12:15: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-008-simon-critchley
“Anne Carson, The Art of Poetry No. 88”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5420/the-art-of-poetry-no-88-anne-carson
“‘Life,’ by Anne Carson”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/28/life
“The Inscrutable Brilliance of Anne Carson”: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/magazine/the-inscrutable-brilliance-of-anne-carson.html
Today’s Quotation is care of Hannah Arendt.
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Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, The Human Condition, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age. At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes of her last major philosophical work, The Life of the Mind, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging).
From https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/.
For more information about Hannah Arendt:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Samantha Rose Hill on Arendt: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-171-samantha-rose-hill
Andy Borowitz on Arendt, at 32:50: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-152-andy-borowitz
Vivek Murthy on Arendt, at 14:09: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-127-vivek-murthy
“Hannah Arendt”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/
“Hannah Arendt on Loneliness as the Common Ground for Terror and How Tyrannical Regimes Use Isolation as a Weapon of Oppression”: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/20/hannah-arendt-origins-of-totalitarianism-loneliness-isolation/
“The Poetic Hannah Arendt: A Conversation with Arendt Researcher Samantha Rose Hill”: https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2021/06/the-poetic-hannah-arendt-a-conversation-with-arendt-researcher-samantha-rose-hill/
Today’s Quotation is care of Anton Chekhov.
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian playwright and short story writer who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theater. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: “Medicine is my lawful wife,” he once said, “and literature is my mistress.” Chekhov renounced the theatre after the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Constantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a “theatre of mood” and a “submerged life in the text.” Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them. Anton Chekhov was the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays and is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama.
From https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/4761/anton-chekhov/.
For more information about Anton Chekhov:
“Chekhov’s Beautiful Nonfiction”: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/chekhovs-beautiful-nonfiction
“Chekhov’s Legacy”:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3845755
Today’s Quotation is care of Bob Dylan.
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Bob Dylan was born on May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. He grew up in the city of Hibbing. As a teenager, he played in various bands and with time his interest in music deepened, with a particular passion for American folk music and blues. One of his idols was the folk singer Woody Guthrie. He was also influenced by the early authors of the Beat Generation, as well as by modernist poets. Dylan moved to New York City in 1961 and began to perform in clubs and cafés in Greenwich Village. He met the record producer John Hammond, with whom he signed a contract for his debut album, Bob Dylan (1962). In the following years, he recorded a number of albums which have had a tremendous impact on popular music: Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited in 1965, Blonde On Blonde in 1966 and Blood On The Tracks in 1975. His productivity continued in the following decades, resulting in masterpieces like Oh Mercy (1989), Time Out of Mind (1997) and Modern Times (2006).
Dylan’s tours in 1965 and 1966 attracted a lot of attention. For a period, he was accompanied by film maker D. A. Pennebaker, who documented life around the stage in what would come to be the movie Dont Look Back (1967). Dylan has recorded a large number of albums revolving around topics such as: the social conditions of man, religion, politics and love. The lyrics have continuously been published in new editions starting in 1973, under the title WritingsandDrawings, subsequently changed to Lyrics. As an artist, he is strikingly versatile; he has been active as a painter, actor and scriptwriter. Besides his large production of albums, Dylan has published experimental work like the prose poetry collection Tarantula (1971). He has written an autobiography, Chronicles (2004), which depicts memories from the early years in New York and which provides glimpses of his life at the center of popular culture. Since the late 1980s, Bob Dylan has toured consistently, playing over 3000 concerts during the last 20 years. Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary culture is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of literary and musical analysis.
From https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/biographical/.
For more information about Bob Dylan:
Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:
Steve Earle about Dylan, at 15:10: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-028-steve-earle
Rosanne Cash about Dylan, at 15:40: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-015-rosanne-cash
“Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/arts/music/bob-dylan-rough-and-rowdy-ways.html
“Bob Dylan - Blowin’ in the Wind”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMFj8uDubsE
Today’s Quotation is care of Václav Havel.
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Václav Havel, (born October 5, 1936, Prague, Czechoslovakia [now the Czech Republic]—died December 18, 2011, Hrádeček, Czech Republic), was a Czech playwright, poet, and political dissident who, after the fall of communism, was president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and of the Czech Republic (1993–2003).
Havel’s first solo play, Zahradní slavnost (1963; The Garden Party), typified his work in its absurdist, satirical examination of bureaucratic routines and their dehumanizing effects. In his best-known play, Vyrozumění (1965; The Memorandum), an incomprehensible artificial language is imposed on a large bureaucratic enterprise, causing the breakdown of human relationships and their replacement by unscrupulous struggles for power. In these and subsequent works Havel explored the self-deluding rationalizations and moral compromises that characterize life under a totalitarian political system. Havel continued to write plays steadily until the late 1980s.
When massive anti-government demonstrations erupted in Prague in November 1989, Havel became the leading figure in the Civic Forum, a new coalition of noncommunist opposition groups pressing for democratic reforms. In early December the Communist Party capitulated and formed a coalition government with the Civic Forum. As a result of an agreement between the partners in this bloodless “Velvet Revolution,” Havel was elected to the post of interim president of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989, and he was reelected to the presidency in July 1990, becoming the country’s first noncommunist leader since 1948. As the Czechoslovak union faced dissolution in 1992, Havel, who opposed the division, resigned from office. The following year he was elected president of the new Czech Republic. His political role, however, was limited, as Prime Minister Václav Klaus (1993–97) commanded much of the power. In 1998 Havel was reelected by a narrow margin, and, under his presidency, the Czech Republic joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1999. Barred constitutionally from seeking a third term, he stepped down as president in 2003.
From https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vaclav-Havel.
For more information about Václav Havel:
“Czech Man: Vaclav Havel”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81BCs5Okltc
“Václav Havel Takes a Bow”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/02/17/exit-havel
“Václav Havel, Former Czech President, Dies at 75”: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/europe/vaclav-havel-dissident-playwright-who-led-czechoslovakia-dead-at-75.html