On this day...

King William IV died in 1837, leading to the ascension of Queen Victoria to the throne of England and beginning arguably one of the most productive literary eras. Described by Matthew Arnold as 'a deeply unpoetical age', the Victorian era was dominated by the novel. Yet these works were not the managable romances of Austen, but heavy tomes of social injustice - their tortuous syntax leading Henry James, guilty himself of several, to name them 'loose baggy monsters'. The main culprits include Charles Dickens, author of almost a dozen major novels, George Eliot of 'Middlemarch' fame and the man of tragic persuasion, Thomas Hardy.

In conjunction with the growing suffrage movement, the Victorian era also saw the rise of the female novelist, most notably highlighted by the Bronte sisters, but supplemented also by names such as Elizabeth Gaskell. English drama is perhaps harder to find, but the one man could make up for it all, as the brilliance and wit of Oscar Wilde takes the stage by storm, preceeding the later George Bernard Shaw, and overshadowing the foreign imports of Chekhov and Ibsen. Despite Arnold's claim, Victorian literature was by no means devoid of poetry, producing Robert Browning, master of the dramatic monologue, blank verse devotee Alfred Lord Tennyson and romantic poet Christina Rossetti.

On this day...

As today is, of course, St. Patrick's day, it seems appropriate to have a look at some of the great literature Ireland has produced. Bursting forth with the dual force of playwrights Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, Irish literature really found its feet in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Of course there had been notable writers before, such as Jonathan Swift and Oliver Goldsmith, yet none had, or possibly ever will, hit the heights that both Wilde and Shaw achieved. 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', 'Pygmalion', 'Mrs. Warren's Profession' - all caused scandal, reality, shock or acceptance, yet above all, they are alll regarded as some of the finest examples of literature.

Although Wilde did write one novel, Ireland's best prose writers are found in the form of Bram Stoker, creator of 'Dracula', and later modernist James Joyce, whose best known work is 'Ulysses'. Finally, so as not to exclude any genre, Ireland has a history of great poets. William Butler Yeats is arguably the most recognisable, courtesy of such works of 'The Tower'. Yet, of course, Ireland still has a poet very much in the spotlight, in Seamus Heaney, creator of such collections as 'The Spirit Level'. Ireland has been the recepient of 4 Nobel Prizes for Literature, and can boast about having one of the oldest literary traditions, after Greek and Latin.

Six Nations of literature...

With the Six Nations kicking off today, it seemed an apt opportunity to take a look at the literature produced by these countries, which is some of the best in the world.

Italy - Starting with the Latin writings of Ovid and Tacitus, Italian literature spans an enormous period and is considered some of the finest. Continuing with Dante and his 'Inferno' in the Middle Ages and the sonnets of Petrach, modern Italian literature still remains in the form of the the late Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco.

France - Dumas, Flaubert, Zola, Proust; the list is endless. More so than other national literature, the French canon contains numerous philosophical works, the products of Camus, Jean Paul Sartre and Jean-Jacques Rosseau. Drama exists in the shape of Moliere, and France expressed an important voice in Roland Barthes.

Ireland - Irish literature really found its feet in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bursting forth with the dual force of playwrights Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, Ireland's literary claim was strengthened through the poetry of Yeats and Goldsmith and its place cemented with the prose works of Joyce.

Wales - Although probably for many, the most famous Welsh writer is poet Dylan Thomas, the literature of Wales is far more diverse. No more so for the strength of works written in its own language, by authors such as William Owen Roberts. Many English writers such as Manley Hopkins have used Welsh subject matter.

Scotland - Scotland's most recent wave of literary tradition came in the Romantic era under the eye of Robert Burns and Walter Scott. Yet it was the Victorian era which propelled it into public eye, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and J.M. Barrie all becoming household names; Duffy now being the latest.

England - Possibly one of the richest literary histories, all that can be said for England is a list of names. The playwrights; Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson. The poets; Milton, Keats, Shelley, Byron and Tennyson. The novelists: Hardy, Austen, the Brontes, Woolf, Dickens, Forster, Eliot and most recently, Rowling.

So there you have it. Competitors on and off the rugby field. Tradition not only in sport but in literature. Long may it continue...

London calling...

 

London has always played its part in literature, be it a muse or home to the writer. Due to its thriving Elizabethan theatre scene, both William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson called London their home and perhaps used elements of their surroundings to inspire some of their best known works. Yet it is surely for the Victorian Era that London is best remembered; sentimentalised and degraded often in the same breath. From Dickens, truly synonymous with the city, to Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Holmes' and Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', London has endured many and varied representations, which can only add to its unique character. A quiz about London and its literary connotations can be found here

On this day...

The Fabian society, a British socialist movement, was founded in 1884. A pre-cursor of the Labour party, the Fabians promoted the rise of social democracy, yet by reformist, as opposed to revolutionary means. Although interesting in itself as a political movement, the Fabian Society is perhaps more  worthy of note for a number of its past members, many with literary connections. One of the co-founders was children's author E. Nesbit, who was closely followed by Irish playwright George Bernanrd Shaw, and later science fiction writer H.G. Wells, a second Irish playwright in Oscar Wilde, and modernist Virginia Woolf. Shaw in particular was an ardent member, giving lectures on other contemporary socialist writers, of which there were many, notably Swedish playwright Henrik Ibsen. Along with three fellows Fabians, Shaw founded the London School of Economics in 1895; a library in LSE is named in his honour.

On this day...

The approaching of a new year has incurred many epigrams over the last century by authors and playwrights alike. Here are some of the more famous ones:

• "The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears."
  - W.H. Auden
  
  
• "The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective."
  - G.K. Chesterton
  
  
• "Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever."
  - Mark Twain
  
  
• "Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account."
  - Oscar Wilde
  
  

Murder, monsters and Austen?...

The gothic genre, is one which has had both popularity and longevity, and boasts many of today's best known novels. A combination of horror and romance, it is thought to have been started by Horace Walpole's 'The Castle of Otranto' in 1764 and has grown prolifically since, with key eras of notable contribution. Coleridge's 'Christabel' and 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' as well as Shelley's 'Frankenstein' are all examples of gothic literature from the Romantic period; yet arguably, it was the Victorian era which proved the most productive for the genre. Titles such as Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', Wilde's 'The Picture if Dorian Gray', and Stoker's 'Dracula' all found their conception in Victorian society; America having its own star in Edgar Allan Poe. Despite it huge popularity, gothic fiction has also produced numerous satires, the famous of which is Austen's 'Northanger Abbey'. A quiz on the gothic genre can be found here

On this day...

Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author, was born in 1850. Even though Stevenson only learnt to read at the age of 8, his childhood was spent always writing stories, an occupation his father used to have at the same age. His father even paid for the publication of Stevenson's first novel, 'The Pentland Rising: A Page of History, 1666', written when he was 16; yet afterward, Stevenson was expected to forget writing and take on the family trade of lighthouse keeping. Failure to do so, resulted in his alienation from his family, yet produced the quality of his literature that survives today. His two most famous works are 'Treasure Island' and 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', both widely read today. However, his poluarity had waned in the 20th century; condemned by Virginia Woolf and unamed in the 'Norton Anthology of English Literature' until 2006, Stevenson remained an 'inferior writer' for some years. He died in 1894, and is now the 25th most translated author in the world, ahead of both Wilde and Dickens.

On this day...

Irish novelist Bram Stoker was born in 1847. Although bed-ridden until the age of seven due to illness, Stoker excelled in both athletics and academia; attending Trinty College, Dublin at the same time as Oscar Wilde. He started his career as the theatre critic for the 'Dublin Evening Mail' whilst still a student, and consequently met actor Henry Irving, to whom he became personal assistant. Irving then granted Stoker the position of managing the Lyceum Theatre, and so he moved to London with his new wife Florence Balcombe, a previous object of Wilde's attentions. In this post Stoker got to travel the world, twice visiting the Whitehouse, and meeting both Theodore Roosevelt and his literary hero Walt Whitman. Stoker is best known for his novel 'Dracula', published in 1897. Now part of popular culture, it is written in epistolary form, drawing on the experience gained whilst working in the newspaper industry. Stoker died in 1912, at the age of 64.