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W H Bell
William Henry Bell, known largely by his initials, W H Bell (20 August 1873 – 13 April 1946), was an English composer, conductor and lecturer. Biography Bell was born in St Albans and was a chorister at St Albans Cathedral. He studied organ, violin and piano in London at the Royal Academy of Music along with composition under Frederick Corder, and modal counterpoint privately with Charles Villiers Stanford. He won the Goss Scholarship in 1899. He mainly made his living as an organist and lecturer; he was Professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy of Music where he taught from 1909 to 1912. In 1911 Bell was Director of Music for the ''Pageant of London'' at Crystal Palace. In 1912, Bell went to South Africa to direct the South African College of Music in Cape Town. He was Principal until 1935 and is credited with a significant expansion of the school. In 1920, Bell became Professor of Music at the University of Cape Town, where he held classes for degree courses. The South ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Albans
St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman Britain, Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north and became the city of Verulamium. It is within the London commuter belt and the Greater London Built-up Area. Name St Albans takes its name from the first British saint, Saint Alban, Alban. The most elaborate version of his story, in Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', relates that he lived in Verulamium, sometime during the 3rd or 4th century, when Christians were suffering persecution. Alban met a Christian priest fleeing from his persecutors and sheltered him in his house, where he became so impressed with the priest's piety that he converted to Christianity. When the authorities searched Alban's house, he put on the priest's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bournemouth
Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest town in Dorset. Previously an uninhabited heathland, visited only by occasional fishermen and smugglers, a health resort was founded in the area by Lewis Tregonwell in 1810. After the Ringwood, Christchurch and Bournemouth Railway opened in 1870, it grew into an important resort town which attracts over five million visitors annually to the town's beaches and nightlife. Financial services provide significant employment. Part of Hampshire since before the Domesday Book, Bournemouth was assigned to Dorset under the Local Government Act 1972 in 1974. Bournemouth Borough Council became a unitary authority in 1997 and was replaced by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council in 2019; the current unitary authority also covers Poole, Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Shelley's reputation fluctuated during the 20th century, but since the 1960s he has achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work. Among his bes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and literary realism, realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection ''Leaves of Grass'', which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality. Whitman was born in Huntington, New York, Huntington on Long Island and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At age 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, ''Leaves of Grass'', first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific '' A Treatise on the Astrolabe'' for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in public service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament, having been elected as shire knight for Kent. Among Chaucer's many other works are '' The Book of the Duchess'', ''The House of Fame'', '' The Legend of Good Women'', ''Troilus and Criseyde'', and '' Parlement of Foules''. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson ( 11 June 1572 – ) was an English playwright, poet and actor. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satire, satirical plays ''Every Man in His Humour'' (1598), ''Volpone, Volpone, or The Fox'' (), ''The Alchemist (play), The Alchemist'' (1610) and ''Bartholomew Fair (play), Bartholomew Fair'' (1614) and for his Lyric poetry, lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James VI and I, James I."The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (12 June 2024)"Ben Jonson" ''Encyclopedia Britannica''. Archived frothe originalon 12 July 2024. Jonson was a Classics, classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual). His cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, writer and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1780 to 1812, representing the constituencies of Stafford, Westminster and Ilchester. The owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London, he wrote several prominent plays such as ''The Rivals'' (1775), '' The Duenna'' (1775), '' The School for Scandal'' (1777) and '' A Trip to Scarborough'' (1777). He served as Treasurer of the Navy from 1806 to 1807. Sheridan died in 1816 and was buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His plays remain a central part of the Western canon and are regularly performed around the world. Early life Sheridan was born in 1751 in Dublin, Ireland, where his family had a house on the then fashionable Dorset Street. His mother, Frances Sheridan, was an Anglo-Irish playwright and novelist. She had two plays produced in London in the early 1760s, though she is best known for her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Waddell
Helen Jane Waddell (31 May 1889 – 5 March 1965) was an Irish poet, scholar, theological novelist, translator, publisher's reader and playwright. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal. A biography of her by the Benedictine nun Dame Felicitas Corrigan was published in 1986, winning the James Tait Black Award. Biography Personal life Waddell was born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister and missionary in Tokyo. Her mother, Jane Martin, died after returning to Ireland while Helen was a baby; Hugh Waddell remarried before taking his four younger children and new wife back to Japan. Thus Helen spent the first eleven years of her life in Japan. The family then returned to Belfast. When Hugh Waddell died he left his youngest children in the care of their stepmother. Following the marriage of her elder sister, Meg, Helen remained living at home with her stepmother, Mrs Waddell, who ensured that Helen led a restricted social life, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wandering Scholars
''The Wandering Scholars'' is a non-fiction book by Helen Waddell, first published in 1927 by Constable, London.Felicitas Corrigan, ''Helen Waddell: a Biography'' (Gollancz, 1986), p. 234-5 It deals primarily with medieval Latin lyric poetry and the main part is a study of the goliards, which she worked on while a research scholar at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. The text includes many of Waddell's own translations of Latin lyrics. The book was at first published in a small edition because it was thought not to have popular appeal, but went through three editions in the first year. It was favourably reviewed by distinguished critics including George Saintsbury, C. H. Haskins and Ferdinand Lot. In recognition of her achievement, Waddell became the first woman to be awarded the A. C. Benson Foundation silver medal by the Royal Society of Literature. Waddell is best known for bringing to light the history of the medieval goliards in this book. She also translated a selection of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifford Bax
Clifford Lea Bax (13 July 1886 – 18 November 1962)Armorial Families: A Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-Armour, A. C. Fox-Davies, T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1910, p. 106 was a versatile English writer, known particularly as a playwright, a journalist, critic and editor, and a poet, lyricist and hymn writer. He also was a translator (for example, of Goldoni). The composer Arnold Bax was his brother, and set some of his words to music. Life The youngest son of Alfred Ridley Bax (1844–1918) and his wife, Charlotte Ellen (1860–1940), daughter of Rev. William Knibb Lea, of Amoy, China,Foreman, Lewis"Bax, Sir Arnold Edward Trevor" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, retrieved 16 September 2015 Bax was born in Tooting Bec, Upper Tooting, south London (not Knightsbridge, as sometimes stated). His father was a barrister of the Middle Temple, but having a private income he did not practise. In 1896 the family moved to a mansion in Hampstead. He was educa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world literature. His extant works include comedies, farces, Tragicomedy, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright today. His influence is such that the French language is often referred to as the "language of Molière". Born into a prosperous family and having studied at the Collège de Clermont (now Lycée Louis-le-Grand), Molière was well suited to begin a life in the theatre. Thirteen years as an itinerant actor helped him polish his comedic abilities while he began writing, combining Commedia dell'arte elements with the more refined French comedy. Through the patronage of aristocrats inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'', ''Kidnapped (novel), Kidnapped'' and ''A Child's Garden of Verses''. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Sidney Colvin, Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse, Leslie Stephen and William Ernest Henley, W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in ''Treasure Island''. In 1890, he settled in Samoa where, alarmed at increasing European and American influence in the Polynesia, South Sea islands, his writing turned from Romance (literary fiction), romance and adven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
