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Mention Edward Lear and most people with a love of poetry will think of limericks and nonsense prose that bring a smile to the lips. Born in 1812 near London, Lear was the youngest of 21 children and was brought up by his sister Ann who acted as his mother for most of their lives. He was not the healthiest of individuals, ...
Born in Herefordshire, England, in 1878, John Masefield is probably one of the most often quoted British poets of the 20th century. His mother and father both died when he was young, which left him under the charge of a domineering aunt. Although he exhibited a talent for writing from an early age, his aunt enrolled him, against his wishes, into ...
Sarojini Naidu, known as the ‘Nightingale of India’, was a celebrated poet, playwright and Indian independence activist. She was the first woman to become President of the Indian National Congress and the first woman to achieve the post of Governor of Uttar Pradesh state. She was born one of eight siblings on 13th February 1879. Her family at that time lived in Hyderabad, ...
Mira Bai was an Indian poet born in 1498 who created over a thousand bhajans, or sacred songs, that are still popular in the country today. Most of her history, and a good part of her myth, was handed down over the years through the oral tradition. She was considered a Hindu mystic and a devotee of the 8th incarnation of ...
Probably most widely known for her novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker was born in Georgia in 1944. Thrown into a time when many Southern whites believed that blacks had no need of an education, Walker came through the turmoil of the US Civil Rights Movement and has been an activist all her adult life. That she had any education at all ...
Poet John Milton(1608-1674) was a poet of the people. His civil ties and deeply emotional works set him apart as one of the pillars from which many poets have built upon. John Miltion’s poetry addresses the governmental influences as well as the day to day obstacles (though more so in the terms of daily human conflict over that of daily ...
A master of the hokku, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) has helped readers achieve a deeper thought process through his works. Rumored to be the son of a samurai, which would surely account for his sense of honor and discipline, and confirmed as a scholar of Todo Yoshitdad the influences in his life made for very though provoking literature. Ever deemed a ...
Perhaps one of the most well-known authors of pirate fiction, Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson (1850-1894) has solidified his position in literature as an author for all ages. It may come as a surprise that Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote a great deal of poetry, and while there is a selection that focus on the sea there are also a great many which do ...
There is little that one can find about Sappho’s (Estimated @200AD). The information which has been obtained has been criticized by scholars. Yet scholars tend to criticize a great many things dated I the early years of AD. From the documents which have been obtained we know that Sappho was a woman and that she had a daughter named Clis, apparently named ...
Born in Senegambia, West Africa, in the 1753, Phillis Wheatley was sold into slavery at a young age and transported to North America, becoming one of the first black American literary voices and a prodigious writing talent. At 7 years of age, brought to Boston on a ship called the Phillis, she was purchased by a well to do merchant who ...
