Poetry
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Víctor Hugo *II 26 1802 — The Life You Give
Victor Hugo, born Victor-Marie Hugo, February 26, 1802, in Besançon, France, is the poet, novelist, and dramatist who was the most important of the French Romantic writers. Though regarded in France as one of that country’s greatest poets, he is better known abroad for such novels as Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) and Les Misérables (1862).…
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Bertolt Brecht *II 10 1898 — The Life You Give
Bertolt Brecht, born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, on February 10 1898, in Augsburg, Germany, is the poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied…
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Rubén Darío *I 18 1867 — The Life You Give
Rubén Darío, born Félix Rubén García Sarmiento, in Metapa, Nicaragua, on January 18 1867, is the influential poet, journalist, diplomat, and leader of the Spanish American literary movement known as Modernismo, which flourished at the end of the 19th century. He revivified and modernized poetry in Spanish on both sides of the Atlantic through his…
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Jim Morrison *XII 8 1943 — The Life You Give
Jim Morrison, born James Douglas Morrison, December 8, 1943, in Melbourne, Florida, U.S.A., is the singer and songwriter who was the charismatic front man of the psychedelic rock group the Doors. Morrison’s father was a naval officer (ultimately an admiral), and the family moved frequently, though it settled down in the Washington, D.C., suburb of…
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Rainer Maria Rilke *XII 4 1875 — The Life You Give / Das Leben das Du Gibst
Rainer Maria Rilke, born December 4 1875, in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now in Czech Republic] was the poet who became internationally famous with such works as Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. Rilke was the only son of a not-too-happy marriage. His father, Josef, a civil servant, was a man frustrated in his career; his…
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William Blake *XI 28 1757 — The Life You Give
William Blake, born Nov. 28, 1757, in London, England, is the engraver, artist, poet, and visionary, author of exquisite lyrics in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and profound and difficult “prophecies,” such as Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen (1794), Milton (1804[–?11]), and Jerusalem (1804[–?20]).…
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Sylvia Plath *X 27 1932 — The Life You Give
Sylvia Plath (born October 27, 1932, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died February 11, 1963, London, England) was an American poet whose best-known works, such as the poems “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” and the novel The Bell Jar, starkly express a sense of alienation and self-destruction closely tied to her personal experiences and, by extension, the situation of…
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Oscar Wilde *X 16 1854 — The Life You Give
Oscar Wilde, born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, October 16, 1854, Dublin, Ireland—died November 30, 1900, Paris, France), Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a…
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Ernst Jandl *VIII 1 1932 — Das Leben, das Du Gibst / The Life You Give
A biography in English is at the bottom Der österreichische Schriftsteller zählt zu den renommiertesten Repräsentanten der experimentellen Lyrik. Er hat sich vor allen Dingen einen Namen durch seine witzigen Sprachexperimente gemacht. Diesbezüglich ist seine Lyrik zu nennen, die durch die ausgesuchte Klangqualität an die dadaistische Strömung erinnern. Kennzeichnend für sein Schaffen waren die Experimente…
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Pablo Neruda *VII 11 1904 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
See biography in English below El mundo de la literatura es grotescamente amplio, con una cantidad de autores que, a lo largo de los años, han aportado su pequeño grano de arena al mundo literario. Sin embargo, algunos son más reconocidos que otros por diversas razones, incluso para aquellas personas que no son muy allegadas…
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Maya Angelou *IV 4 1928 / The Life You Give
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Although born in St. Louis, Angelou spent much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandmother in rural…
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Bertolt Brecht *II 10 1898 / The Life You Give
Bertolt Brecht, born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, on February 10 1898, in Augsburg, Germany, is the poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes. Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria, where he was born, studied…
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Days with David Bowie — film: Baal
David Bowie in Alan Clarke’s ‘Baal’ (1982) Alan Clarke’s films generally go straight into the ‘once seen, never forgotten’ file – including David Bowie’s remarkable turn as Baal, Bertolt Brecht’s anti-hero, adapted by Clarke and John Willett from the 1918 play. Though it wasn’t exactly a frequently-performed work, British theatre audiences were treated to a…
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T. S. Eliot *IX 26 1888 / The Life You Give
T.S. Eliot, born Thomas Stearns Eliot, September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor, and leader of the Modernist movement in poetry in such works as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot exercised a strong influence on Anglo-American culture from the 1920s until late…
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Das Leben, das Du Gibst / The Life You Give: Ernst Jandl *VIII 1 1932
A biography in English is at the bottom Der österreichische Schriftsteller zählt zu den renommiertesten Repräsentanten der experimentellen Lyrik. Er hat sich vor allen Dingen einen Namen durch seine witzigen Sprachexperimente gemacht. Diesbezüglich ist seine Lyrik zu nennen, die durch die ausgesuchte Klangqualität an die dadaistische Strömung erinnern. Kennzeichnend für sein Schaffen waren die Experimente…
Sila Blume 