"Destiny stands behind people, veiled in a veil of mystery, and in her hand she holds a quiver with a thousand events..."
Gloria Victis
Polish novelist Eliza Orzeszkowa died #OTD in 1810.
Orzeszkowa was a leading writer of the Positivism movement during foreign Partitions of Poland. In 1905, together with Henryk Sienkiewicz, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
British mathematician, logician, philosopher, & public intellectual Bertrand Russell was born #OTD in 1872.
One of Russell's most significant achievements is the co-authorship of "Principia Mathematica" (1910-1913) with Alfred North Whitehead. His works, such as "The Problems of Philosophy" (1912) & "Our Knowledge of the External World" (1914), explored issues related to knowledge, perception, & the scientific method.
He is best known for his classic plays, particularly "The Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro," which form part of the Figaro trilogy. These works were adapted into famous operas by Gioachino Rossini and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart respectively.
Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos, the first book in the Galician language.
The book is framed between poems 1 and 36, which constitute respectively the prologue and epilogue. It also manifests a circular structure as it begins with a composition in which a young girl who is invited to sing takes the voice and ends with the same voice of the girl who apologizes for her lack of ability to sing the beauties of Galicia.
The first copies of the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum were printed by the George M. Hill Company.
During the subsequent decades after the novel's publication in 1900, it received little critical analysis from scholars of children's literature. This lack of interest stemmed from the scholars' misgivings about fantasy, as well as to their belief that lengthy series had little literary merit.
A Book from the Sky is a 600-page book published in 1988 by Chinese artist Xu Bing, consisting entirely of nonsense, using only meaningless, imaginary Chinese characters, printed in the style of medieval woodblock editions. According to Xu, his main purpose was to "expose the fact that Chinese literary culture is boring”. 😄 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Book_from_the_Sky#art#literature#Chinese
English poet, author and critic Edmund Gosse died #OTD in 1928.
Gosse's father, Philip Henry Gosse, was a renowned naturalist, and their complex relationship is detailed in Edmund Gosse's memoir, "Father and Son" (1907), which remains one of his most famous works. In addition to "Father and Son," he wrote numerous other works, including poetry collections, biographies, and literary criticism.
“Since the beginning of #Israel’s war on #Gaza, academics in fields including #politics, #sociology, Japanese #literature, public #health, Latin American and Caribbean studies, Middle East and African studies, #mathematics, #education, and more have been fired, suspended, or removed from the classroom for pro-#Palestine, anti-Israel speech.”
—“Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
—“That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”
May 16 is Biographers Day – marking the 1st meeting of James Boswell & Samuel Johnson in 1763
British poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans died #OTD in 1835.
Some of her most famous poems include "Casabianca," which begins with the memorable line "The boy stood on the burning deck," and "The Homes of England," which celebrates the virtues of home and family. Hemans also wrote historical and romantic poetry, drawing inspiration from literature, history, and mythology.
"Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves, opening as I pass."
The Poetical Works of Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1914)
~Felicia Dorothea Hemans (25 September 1793 – 16 May 1835)
Natsume Sōseki's novel Light and Darkness (明暗, Mei An) begins to be serialized in the Tokyo and Osaka editions of the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, but will remain unfinished at the author's death on December 9, aged 49.
The Turkish British writer Elif Shafak has published 19 books, many of which are bestsellers, and her novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Yet she's also one of Turkish literature's most attacked authors, the victim of a campaign that started with fringe nationalist groups and has now been taken up by individuals associated with the ruling Justice and Development Party. Kaya Genç writes for The Dial about how this case is part of a wider trend in President Erdoğan's "new Turkey."
Alice Munro's death was announced yesterday. Her self-described "second oldest remaining friend and colleague," fellow Canadian author Margaret Atwood, has written this tribute to her on her Substack, In the Writing Burrow. It's meant for paying subscribers, but a substantial portion is free to read.
"Alice could be quite mischievous, and not only in her writing. Both of us had dark curly hair at one time. We were about the same height.
"Alice: I was standing on a train platform and a man came up to me and said, ‘You’re Margaret Atwood!' 'Yes,' I said, 'I am.' Then we had quite an interesting conversation about your working methods and where you get your inspiration.
"Turn and turn about: After we both had white hair, and after Alice had won the Nobel, people would come up to me and murmur, 'Congratulations.' 'For what?' I would say. 'You know. Winning that prize.' After a while I stopped trying to explain, and just murmured back, modestly, 'Thank you.' Though the Thank Yous were really for Alice."
Guest speaker: Scottish actor & playwright Matthew Zajac, who will be also performing his critically acclaimed play THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS – the first performance of this play in France
Dutch poet, literary critic, & essayist Albert Verwey was born #OTD in 1865.
Verwey was a central figure in the Dutch literary movement known as the Tachtigers, which sought to revolutionize Dutch poetry by emphasizing individualism, emotion, and innovative language and form. The Tachtigers rejected the conventional poetic styles & themes of their time, advocating for a more personal and introspective approach to poetry.
"There are tones so high
And so low
That human ears
Cannot hear them.
It's possible, living
In forest or hedge
That birds hide from us
Singing until the morning."
"If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
Life, p. 6 - Collected Poems (1993)
American lyric poet Emily Dickinson died #OTD in 1888. Although she wrote 1789 poems, only a few of them were published in her lifetime, all anonymously, and some perhaps without her knowledge.
I never felt so much
Since I have felt at all
The tingling smell and touch
Of dogrose and sweet briar,
Nettles against the wall,
All sours and sweets that grow
Together or apart
In hedge or marsh or ditch…
@AnnaAnthro The article says Munro never embraced the novel. I would argue that she did; her short stories were novels (or perhaps novellas). The completeness and depth of her short stories made them so compelling. The incompleteness and shallowness of so many short stories are a reason I mostly don't like that genre. Munro was the best. RIP #AliceMunro.
Alice Munro, the Canadian writer, has died at age 92. In 2013, she became the first Nobel winner cited exclusively for short fiction — an achievement that came after her retirement from her 60-year writing career. Prior to that, she had won Canada's Giller Prize twice, then disqualified herself in 2009 to make way for younger writers. Ms. Munro “brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels,” the jury of the Man Booker International Prize declared in 2009, awarding her the prize for her overall contribution to fiction. Here's a tribute to her from the Globe & Mail. [Story may be paywalled]