Civil Disobedience and Other Essays is a collection of some of Henry David Thoreau's most important essays. Contained in this volume are the following essays: Civil Disobedience, Natural History of Massachusetts, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Winter Walk, The Succession of Forest Trees, Walking, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples, Night and Moonlight, Aulus Persius Flaccus, Herald of Freedom, Life Without Principle, Paradise (to be) Regained, A Plea for John Brown, The Last Days of John...
Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is historically recognized as the first woman to make a living through writing; her plays, novels, poems and pamphlets have met with fresh notoriety since the 20th Century. Her work was particularly significant to a group of contemporary writers known as The Female Wits, as well as to later feminist writers like Virginia Woolf. Stories of comedy and intrigue, complete with and masks, mistaken identities, visual deceptions, and complicated love triangles reflect Behn's...
These are essays, indeed, but generally not the sort taught in schools – or that I taught for forty years: not in the elegant Intro/Thesis/Proof/Conclusion tradition but more in the older tradition of Michel de Montaigne and les essais, and of satire. That is, they are «attempts,» explorations, and, well, also traps, where I wander around a bit in apparent innocence and then spring on readers a possibly outrageous idea, one they wouldn’t have considered for a moment if I hadn’t lulled them (you)...
In his day, John Ruskin (1819-1900) held the power to make or break artists with his critical reviews. He served as benefactor to many artists, and was a huge supporter of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. His legacy holds the titles poet and artist as well, as he wrote works that were very popular during his lifetime, and remain relevant today. Around the 1850's, however, Ruskin underwent a major change concerning his religious beliefs and completely gave up art criticism, turning his attention...
G. B. Shaw (1856-1950) wrote «The Perfect Wagnerite» as a philosophical examination of Richard Wagner's epic four-opera cycle, «Der Ring des Nibelungen» («The Ring of the Nibelung»). A tremendously accomplished dramatist himself, Shaw seemed perfectly poised to turn his critical eye on Wagner's 19th century masterpiece. Wagner completed «The Ring» in 1853, after decades of effort. A work of such ambition takes much unpacking, and so Shaw offers us his critique. In his preface, Shaw...
During the 1800s in America, the rise of technology allowed people to have more possessions than ever before, and at a cheaper cost. However, a group known as the Transcendentalists believed that possessions created vanity. Instead, they valued the individual's relationship with divinity. One of the movements most famous members, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote prolifically about his beliefs and experiences, and many of those writings have been chronicled in «Essays & Poems by Ralph Waldo...
As a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, Samuel Johnson's contributions to English literature cannot be understated. His single greatest achievement is widely considered to be his «Dictionary of the English Language,» which after nine years of research was first published in 1755. Until the publication of the «Oxford English Dictionary» over a century and a half later it was widely considered to be the preeminent dictionary of the English...
Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is historically recognized as the first woman to make a living through writing; her plays, novels, poems and pamphlets have met with fresh notoriety since the 20th century. Her work was particularly significant to a group of contemporary writers known as The Female Wits, as well as to later feminist writers like Virginia Woolf. Stories of comedy and intrigue, complete with masks, mistaken identities, visual deceptions, and complicated love triangles which reflect...
Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is historically recognized as the first woman to make a living through writing; her plays, novels, poems and pamphlets have met with fresh notoriety since the 20th Century. Her work was particularly significant to a group of contemporary writers known as The Female Wits, as well as to later feminist writers like Virginia Woolf. Stories of comedy and intrigue, complete with and masks, mistaken identities, visual deceptions, and complicated love triangles reflect Behn's...