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Ruthven Todd
Ruthven Campbell Todd (pronounced 'riven') (14 June 1914 – 11 October 1978) was a Scottish poet, artist and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake, and expert on his printing techniques. During the 1940s he also wrote detective fiction under the pseudonym R. T. CampbellJohn Clute, "Todd, Ruthven", in ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', edited by Clute and Peter Nicholls. London, Orbit,1994. (pp. 1299–1300). Peter Main, "The Novels of R.T. Campbell", in R.T. Campbell, ''Take Thee a Sharp Knife''. Stirling, Lomax Press, 2011, pp. 13–25. and children's fiction during the 1950s. Biography Edinburgh and the early years Born in Edinburgh,Gordon Jarvie, "Ruthven Todd", ''Zed20 Magazine'', 23, pp. 46-53. Todd was the eldest of the ten children of Walker Todd (an architect) and Christian Todd (née Craik). He was educated at Dalhousie Preparatory School, Fettes College and Edinburgh College of Art. His short spell at art college convinced him that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Romanticism, Romantic Age. What he called his "William Blake's prophetic books, prophetic works" were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "human existence itself". Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he came to be highly regarded by later critics and readers for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Len Lye
Leonard Charles Huia Lye (; 5 July 1901 – 15 May 1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific Film Archive at University of California, Berkeley. Lye's sculptures are found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Berkeley Art Museum. Although he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1950, much of his work went to New Zealand after his death, where it is housed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth. Career As a student, Lye became convinced that motion could be part of the language of art, leading him to early (and now lost) experiments with kinetic sculpture, as well as a desire to make film. Lye was also one of the first Pākehā artists to appreciate the art of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dystopian
A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. Dystopia is widely seen as the opposite of utopia – a concept coined by Thomas More in 1516 to describe an ideal society. Both ''topias'' are common topics in fiction. Dystopia is also referred to as cacotopia, or anti-utopia. Dystopias are often characterized by fear or distress, tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Themes typical of a dystopian society include: complete control over the people in a society through the use propaganda and police state tactics, heavy censorship of information or denial of free thought, worship of an unattainable goal, the complete loss of individuality, and heavy enforcement of conformity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Warner
Reginal Ernest Warner (Rex) (9 March 1905 – 24 June 1986) was an English classicist, writer, and translator. He is now probably best remembered for ''The Aerodrome'' (1941).Chris Hopkins, ''English Fiction in the 1930s: Language, Genre, History'' Continuum International Publishing Group, 2007 (pp. 138–57). Warner was described by V. S. Pritchett as "the only outstanding novelist of ideas whom the decade of ideas produced"."Rex Warner, 81, Dies; Author and Translator". ''The New York Times'', 17 July 1986 Biographical sketch He was born in Birmingham, England, and brought up mainly in Gloucestershire, the son of the Rev. Frederic Ernest Warner, vicar of Amberley, and his wife Kathleen Luce, daughter of the Rev. John James Luce."Rex Warner (Obituary)". ''The Times''. 27 June 1986. He was educated at St. George's School in Harpenden and at Wadham College, Oxford, where he associated with W. H. Auden, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Stephen Spender and published in ''Oxford Poetry''.Mich ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allegorical
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughout history in all forms of art to illustrate or convey complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners. Writers and speakers typically use allegories to convey (semi-) hidden or complex meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey. Many allegories use personification of abstract concepts. Etymology First attested in English in 1382, the word ''allegory'' comes from Latin ''allegoria'', the latinisation of the Greek ἀλληγορία (''allegoría''), "veiled language, figurative", literally "speaking about something else", which in turn comes from ἄλλος ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathleen Raine
Kathleen Jessie Raine (14 June 1908 – 6 July 2003) was an English poet, critic and scholar, writing in particular on William Blake, W. B. Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently Platonism and Neoplatonism, she was a founding member of the Temenos Academy. Life Kathleen Raine was born in Ilford, Essex, the only child of schoolmaster and Methodist lay preacher George Raine, from Wingate, County Durham, and Jessie (née Wilkie), a Scot who spoke Scots as her first language. The Raines had met as students at Armstrong College in Newcastle upon Tyne. Raine spent part of World War I, 'a few short years', with her Aunty Peggy Black at the manse in Great Bavington, Northumberland. She commented, "I loved everything about it". For her it was an idyllic world and is the declared foundation of all her poetry. Raine always remembered Northumberland as Eden: "In Northumberland I knew myself in my own place; and I never 'adjusted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphrey Jennings
Frank Humphrey Sinkler Jennings (19 August 1907 – 24 September 1950) was an English documentary filmmaker and one of the founders of the Mass Observation organisation. Jennings was described by film critic and director Lindsay Anderson in 1954 as "the only real poet that British cinema has yet produced." Early life and career Born in Walberswick, Suffolk, Jennings was the son of Guild Socialists, an architect father and a painter mother. He was educated at the Perse School and later read English at Pembroke College, Cambridge. When not studying, he painted and created advanced stage designs and was the founder-editor of ''Experiment'' in collaboration with William Empson and Jacob Bronowski. After graduating with a starred First-Class degree in English, Jennings undertook post-graduate research on the poet Thomas Gray, under the supervision of a predominantly absent I. A. Richards, who was teaching abroad. After abandoning what looked like a successful academic career ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass-Observation
Mass-Observation is a United Kingdom social research project; originally the name of an organisation which ran from 1937 to the mid-1960s, and was revived in 1981 at the University of Sussex. Mass-Observation originally aimed to record everyday life in Britain through a panel of around 500 untrained volunteer observers who either maintained diaries or replied to open-ended questionnaires (known as directives). The organisation also paid investigators to anonymously record people's conversation and behaviour at work, on the street and at various public occasions, including public meetings and sporting and religious events. Origins The creators of the Mass-Observation project were three former students from Cambridge: anthropologist Tom Harrisson (who left Cambridge before graduating), poet Charles Madge and filmmaker Humphrey Jennings. Collaborators included literary critic William Empson, photographers Humphrey Spender and Michael Wickham, collagist Julian Trevelyan, nov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work. Born in Figueres in Catalonia, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance art, Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, ''The Persistence of Memory'', was completed in August 1931. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic fai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Surrealist Exhibition
The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries, near Savile Row in London's Mayfair, England. Organisers The exhibition was organised by committees from England, France, Belgium, Scandinavia and Spain. The English organising committee consisted of: * Hugh Sykes Davies * David Gascoyne * Humphrey Jennings * McKnight Kauffer * Rupert Lee, Chairman * Diana Brinton Lee, Secretary * Henry Moore * Paul Nash * Roland Penrose, Honorary Treasurer * Herbert Read The French organising committee were: * André Breton * Paul Éluard * Georges Hugnet * Man Ray The remaining nations had a single committee representative: * E. L. T. Mesens, Belgium * Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen, Denmark * Salvador Dalí, Spain The number of exhibits, paintings, sculpture, objects and drawings displayed during the exhibition's run was around 390. Danish painter Wilhelm Freddie's entries never made it to the exhibition, as they were confisc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, collaborator in Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist Italy and the Italian Social Republic, Salò Republic during World War II. His works include ''Ripostes'' (1912), ''Hugh Selwyn Mauberley'' (1920), and ''The Cantos'' (–1962). Pound's contribution to poetry began in the early-20th century with his role in developing Imagism, a movement stressing precision and economy of language. Working in London as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, he helped to discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as H.D., Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, and James Joyce. He was responsible for the 1914 serialization of Joyce's ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'', the 1915 publication of Eliot's "Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
