Rabindranath Tagore - Henry Wordsworth Longfellow - Anne Louisa Walker -V K Gokak - Walt Whitman - Douglas Malloch
Rabindranath
Tagore (1861-1941)
Anne Louisa Walker
Vinayaka Krishna Gokak ( V.K. Gokak): 1909-1992
Honours
and awards:
Works:
Douglas Malloch
All the best......
Rabindranath
Tagore (1861-1941)
Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo
Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which
attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in
the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent
to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his
mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the
family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common
humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an
experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of
education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist
movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the
political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted
by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned
the honour as a protest against British policies in India.
Tagore had early
success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his
poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous
height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship.
For the world he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India,
especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.
Although Tagore wrote
successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his
fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari
(1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings], Gitimalya (1914)
[Wreath of Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes]. The English
renderings of his poetry, which include The Gardener (1913), Fruit-Gathering
(1916), and The Fugitive (1921), do not generally correspond to particular
volumes in the original Bengali; and in spite of its title, Gitanjali: Song
Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works
besides its namesake. Tagore's major plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the
Dark Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan (1912) [The
Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red
Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number
of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World],
and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents]. Besides these, he wrote musical dramas,
dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one
in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also
left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music
himself.
Rabindranath Tagore
died on August 7, 1941.
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow (1807-1882)
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow (1807-1882) was an influential American poet, translator and
professor at Harvard University. Longfellow’s most significant work is,
perhaps, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie. During his life time, Longfellow was
considered the best of all American poets, and his work was widely translated
and published in other European languages: Italian, German and French to note a
few. Some view Longfellow’s literary reputation as nearly sacrosanct, yetEdgar
Allan Poe and Walt Whitman negatively critique his work. Walt Whitmanwould go
so far as to accuse Longfellow as merely being an imitator of European forms.
Whitman would praise Longfellow almost exclusively on his ability to keep his
audience’s favor. He is the only American to be honored with a bust placed in
the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Sr. declared that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the best of American
poets and praised the cheer he was able to display in his writing.
On February 27, 1807,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine. His father, Stephen
Longfellow, was a politician and lawyer.
From 1813 until 1821,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow attended the Portland Academy. In 1820, the Portland
Gazette published his first poem. Longfellow continued his education at Bowdoin
College, an institution for which his father was a trustee. In 1825, Longfellow
graduated fourth in his class. Longfellow continued publishing poetry
throughout his time in college. During his time at Bowdoin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
befriended the seminal American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Bowdoin College
promised Henry Wadsworth Longfellow a chair in modern languages on the
condition that he tour Europe and continue his studies there. From 1826 until
1829, Longfellow traveled through France, Germany, Italy and Spain. This travel
had a profound impact on Longfellow. The traces of the tours influence can be
seen not only in Longfellow mode of life, but also his choice of subjects.
In 1831, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow married Mary Storer Potter, a woman renowned for her
beauty.
Returning to the
United States, Bowdoin offered Longfellow a lectureship instead of the promised
chair. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow refused this position. But when the college
created the chair, Longfellow accepted this position as well as an ancillary
position as a librarian. In addition to his work in these positions, Longfellow
also worked on translations and edited textbooks in languages. His creative
writing also continued and he was a regular contributor to North American
Review.
When George Ticknor
retired from his positions as Harvard University’s Smith professor of modern
languages and belles-lettres, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was offered the
position. Longfellow went to Europe a second time to gain a better knowledge of
German and Scandinavian languages. His wife accompanied him on this journey.
She died in childbirth in Rotterdam. In his grief, Longfellow redoubled his
efforts of his study. However, during his travels through Switzerland he would
meet his second wife and model for the protagonist of his novel Hyperion,
Frances Elizabeth Appleton.
In 1836, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow returned the United States and had taken the position at
Harvard. Longfellow earned a reputation as a thoughtful instructor. He invested
so much time in his teaching responsibility that he was not as creatively
productive as he would have liked to be. Yet even with his investment of labor
in teaching, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was able to become a financially
successful poet. At one point, Longfellow even set a record by earning $3000
for the poem The Hanging of the Crane. In 1854, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
resigned from his position at Harvard University in favor of his friend, James
Russell Lowell, so that Longfellow could spend more time writing.
In 1842, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow was to turn his poetic prowess in support of the
abolitionist movement. He published Poems for Slavery. Longfellow considered
the work to be so unobtrusive that it approached neutrality that even a slave
owner would not object to. The New England Anti-Slavery Society would continue
to print it in order to further their cause.
Longfellow captures
the plight of an enslave people with a delicate pen. At the end of one poem, he
declares “[the slave] did not feel the driver's whip,/ Nor the burning heat of
day;/ For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,/ And his lifeless body lay/ A
worn-out fetter, that the soul/ Had broken and thrown away!” Longfellow
captures the sentiment that death was the only reprieve available for the
enslaved African Diaspora of the nineteenth century, which despite Longfellow’s
claim “that Slaveholder might read [it] without losing his appetite for
breakfast”, still contains a clear social message.
In 1841, Edgar Allan
Poe wrote to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poe praised Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
saying that Longfellow was “unquestionably the best poet in America.” Edgar
Allan Poe’s criticism changed as Poe’s reputation as a critic increased his
praise from Longfellow ebbed. Poe’s public presentation of his criticism of
Longfellow culminated with an accusation of plagiarism of Alfred, Lord Tennyson
by Longfellow. Despite Poe’s accusations, many critics have interpreted Poe’s
accusations as a publicity stunt to garner attention for theBroadway Journal,
which Poe edited.
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow returned to Europe in 1842. He stayed in Europe into the following
year to marry Frances Elizabeth Appleton. Longfellow’s new father-in-law
presented the new couple with Craigie House, which at one time was George
Washington’s headquarters during the American Revolution. The marriage would
last until 1861, when Frances would die tragically. She would inadvertently set
her dress on fire while attempting to melt sealing wax.
In 1860, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow composed Paul Revere’s Ride. This poem was composed on the
eve of the American Civil War. Longfellow hoped to instill in Northerners a
sense of urgency and courageousness. True to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
creative process he wanted to remind his readers of their moral obligations.
Many see this poem as an attempt to remind both sides of their moral
obligations so that they could remember the tenants of American unity. Although
this poem was not entirely historically accurate, it served to create the
American legend of Paul Revere, a Massachusetts silversmith who created a
system of intelligence and alarm to track the British military during the
American Revolution. At one time, Longfellow’s retelling of these events was
incorporated into American history textbooks without much mitigation.
As a widower with
five young children, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow devoted himself to a
programmatic process of translation. His translation of Dante Aligheiri’s
Divine Comedy represents the majority of his work in the years after the death
of his second wife. The translation is considered overly literal.
In 1868, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow traveled to Europe for the last time. During his travels,
celebrities flocked to him. Cambridge awarded Longfellow with an honorary
L.L.D., and Oxford awarded him an honorary D.C.L. Despite the renown,
Longfellow felt an internal pain. However, he suppressed outward signs the
grief and comported himself with a cheery air. He is noted for always
consenting to requests for autographs from his fans.
In 1882, Longfellow
died suddenly. Ralph Waldo Emerson would give him the epitaph, "This
gentleman was a sweet, beautiful soul, but I have entirely forgotten his
name." During his lifetime, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the
first American writers to achieve international recognition. After his death,
Longfellow’s reputation declined quickly. Many view contemporary readers have
come to view Longfellow’s work as imitations of standard European forms
Anne Louisa Walker
Anne Louisa
Walker, teacher and author; b. c. 1836 in Staffordshire, England, youngest
daughter of Robert Walker, a civil engineer, and Anna —; m. 29 Jan. 1884 Harry
Coghill (d. 1897) in London, England; they had no children; d. 7 July 1907 in
Bath, England.
Annie Louisa Walker
came to Lower Canada as a child with her family. They lived first at
Pointe-Lévy (Lévis) and then moved in 1858 to Sarnia, Upper Canada, where her
father continued to work for the Grand Trunk Railway. That year Annie and her
sisters, Isabella and Frances, opened a private girls’ school. A woman who
attended it described the sisters thus: “They were very English, very
dignified, and somewhat exclusive, but were excellent teachers, especially in
the departments of history and English literature. Anna was the . . . best
looking. . . . At times her face had a pensive and somewhat dreamy expression.
Her manner was gentle and sweet.” On the deaths of Annie’s sisters a few years
later, the school closed.
In 1861 Annie, who
had been publishing poems in periodicals and newspapers since her teens,
brought out a collection by subscription, Leaves from the backwoods, through
the Montreal house of John Lovell*. Shortly thereafter she returned to England
with her parents, who soon died. She then contacted her second cousin, Mrs
Margaret Oliphant, a widow and successful writer, and about 1865 became a
member of her extended family. As Mrs Oliphant’s companion-housekeeper from
1866, she cared for the children during her cousin’s frequent prolonged
absences, acted as secretary, and looked after proofs and other writing
matters. In turn, Margaret Oliphant, although she did not seem to take Annie’s
literary ambitions seriously, urged her to shift her interest from poetry to
fiction and recommended her to publishers. Between 1873 and 1881 Walker brought
out five novels and a volume of plays for children. Following her marriage to a
wealthy widower and move to Staffordshire, Annie did not give up writing
completely; she published one more novel, at least one story, and a second book
of poetry.
Of the works in that
collection of poems, Oak and maple: English and Canadian verses (1890),
two-thirds had appeared in Leaves. Her poems are largely about religion or
nature. The most effective are those characterized by unpretentious phrasing
and directness of expression, but most are conventional in diction, form, and
subject matter. At times her nature poems are close to transcendental in their
expression of the spiritual in nature. The lyrics of the well-known hymn “Work,
for the night is coming” derive from her poem “The night cometh,” which first
appeared in Leaves. In Oak and maple she remarks on discovering the verses in a
hymn-book, but without accreditation. The meditative poem “In the Canadian
backwoods” makes the frequent complaint of poets about the lack of a mythology
in a new land and notes the absence of nymphs in the Canadian woods, suggesting
that it is simply too cold for them there.
Walker’s first novel,
A Canadian heroine (1873), is set in a locale familiar to the author, a small
town on the St Lawrence River. The innocence of the New World is set against
the superficiality and corruption of the Old when the 16-year-old heroine
almost loses her Canadian suitor because of her infatuation with a visiting
English aristocrat, who proves to be unreliable. An element of the Gothic is
present in the mystery surrounding the heroine’s birth; her father is
discovered to be a Jesuit-educated Indian, from whom her mother ran away after
he became drunken and abusive. When discovered, her mixed-blood status is
accepted by her neighbours and lover. Walker’s later novels are set in England
and, with one exception, have female perspectives. In the most interesting of
them, Against her will (1877), the protagonist is a young woman coping with the
problems thrust upon her by her father’s fragile health. She is portrayed as
intelligent, responsible, and more capable than any of the male characters – a
forerunner of the later–19th-century’s “new woman.”
Walker’s writing
career began in Canada and her most telling poems are the Canadian nature poems
written in her youth. The best known of her verses, however, are the lyrics of
“Work, for the night is coming.” In A Canadian heroineshe was an early exponent
of the international theme of the New World versus the Old, which American
Henry James was to popularize later and Canadian Sara Jeannette Duncan* was to
employ in the 1890s.
Vinayaka Krishna Gokak ( V.K. Gokak): 1909-1992
was born on August 9,
1909 at Gokak. He had his primary and high school education in Savanur, and
took B.A. in 1929 and M.A. in 1931. he began his career as an Assistant
Professor in Fergusson College, Pune and later he became the principal of
D.E.Society's Willington College, Sangli. In 1936, he done his advanced studies
with distinction at Oxford university. In 1946, he went to Rajasthan and set up
a college in its desert region and in 1949, with the reorganisation of Indian
states, his services in Rajasthan got transferred to the Government of Bombay
and he became the principal of Karnataka College, Kolhapur, in 1952. He
appointed as the Vice-chancellor of the Bangalore University in 1966.
The main phase of his
literary career and his life itself began in 1925 when he was swayed by the
magnetic force of the towering figure of Kannada poetry D.R.Bendre. He given
unparallelled contributions to poetry (including composition of the epic
Bharatha Sindhurashmi), drama, criticism and various other forms of literature,
apart from producing many scholarly works in English.
Honours
and awards:
1. Presidentship of
the 40th Kannada Sahitya Sammelana in 1958.
2. Honorary
doctorates from the Karnatak University.
3. Honorary
doctorates from the Pacific University of the USA.
4. Central Sahitya
Akademi award for his 'Dyava Prithivi' in 1961.
5. Jnanpith award-for
his Bharatha sindhu rashmi, in 1990.
Works:
1. Bharatha sinDhu
rashmi
2. Samarasave jeevana
3. Oornanaaba
4. Abyudaya
5. Baaladeguladalli
6. Dhyava pruthvi
7. Samudra geethegaLu
Born on May 31, 1819,
Walt Whitman was the second son of Walter Whitman, a housebuilder, and Louisa
Van Velsor. The family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Brooklyn and
Long Island in the 1820s and 1830s.
At the age of twelve,
Whitman began to learn the printer’s trade, and fell in love with the written
word. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the
works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible.
Whitman worked as a
printer in New York City until a devastating fire in the printing district
demolished the industry. In 1836, at the age of seventeen, he began his career
as teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach
until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career.
He founded a weekly
newspaper, Long-Islander, and later edited a number of Brooklyn and New York
papers. In 1848, Whitman left the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to become editor of the
New Orleans Crescent. It was in New Orleans that he experienced firsthand the
viciousness of slavery in the slave markets of that city. On his return to
Brooklyn in the fall of 1848, he founded a “free soil” newspaper, the Brooklyn
Freeman, and continued to develop the unique style of poetry that later so
astonished Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In 1855, Whitman took
out a copyright on the first edition ofLeaves of Grass, which consisted of
twelve untitled poems and a preface. He published the volume himself, and sent
a copy to Emerson in July of 1855. Whitman released a second edition of the
book in 1856, containing thirty-three poems, a letter from Emerson praising the
first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. During his
lifetime, Whitman continued to refine the volume, publishing several more
editions of the book. Noted Whitman scholar, M. Jimmie Killingsworth writes
that “the ‘merge,' as Whitman conceived it, is the tendency of the individual
self to overcome moral, psychological, and political boundaries. Thematically
and poetically, the notion dominates the three major poems of 1855: ‘I Sing the
Body Electric,' ‘The Sleepers,' and ‘Song of Myself,' all of which were
‘merged’ in the first edition under the single title Leaves of Grass but were
demarcated by clear breaks in the text and the repetition of the title.”
At the outbreak of
the Civil War, Whitman vowed to live a “purged” and “cleansed” life. He worked
as a freelance journalist and visited the wounded at New York City–area
hospitals. He then traveled to Washington, D. C. in December 1862 to care for
his brother who had been wounded in the war.
Overcome by the
suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work
in the hospitals and stayed in the city for eleven years. He took a job as a
clerk for the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the
Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of
Grass, which Harlan found offensive. Harlan fired the poet.
Whitman struggled to
support himself through most of his life. In Washington, he lived on a clerk’s
salary and modest royalties, and spent any excess money, including gifts from
friends, to buy supplies for the patients he nursed. He had also been sending
money to his widowed mother and an invalid brother. From time to time writers
both in the states and in England sent him “purses” of money so that he could
get by.
In the early 1870s,
Whitman settled in Camden, New Jersey, where he had come to visit his dying
mother at his brother’s house. However, after suffering a stroke, Whitman found
it impossible to return to Washington. He stayed with his brother until the
1882 publication of Leaves of Grass (James R. Osgood) gave Whitman enough money
to buy a home in Camden.
In the simple
two-story clapboard house, Whitman spent his declining years working on
additions and revisions to a new edition of the book and preparing his final
volume of poems and prose, Good-Bye, My Fancy (David McKay, 1891). After his
death on March 26, 1892, Whitman was buried in a tomb he designed and had built
on a lot in Harleigh Cemetery.
Along with Emily
Dickinson, he is considered one of America’s most important poets.
Douglas Malloch
Douglas Malloch
became known as the “Lumbermen’s Poet,” both locally and on the national
scene. Born in Muskegon on May 5, 1877, he grew up amidst logging camps,
sawmills and lumber yards. Naturally, Malloch came to love the forests
and began writing of lumbering scenes.
At age ten, Malloch delivered newspapers for the Muskegon Chronicle.
About that time he wrote his first poem and it was published in the Detroit
News. After leaving school he took a job on the editorial staff at the Muskegon
Chronicle. He remained with the newspaper for 13 years, becoming a reporter
and feature writer. During that period he got to know Charles Hackley
quite well.
In 1903, Malloch joined the staff of American Lumberman, a trade paper in
Chicago. There he wrote a syndicated column. Often his weekly
columns took the form of a poem. He developed into a nationally renowned
humorist, lecturer and radio personality. Many of his poems were
eventually collected into a series of books. His book “In Forest Land,”
became a best seller and was reprinted several times
Much of Malloch’s poetry drew on the solace of the forest as a cure for life’s
difficulties.
“Get up in the timber; the trail and the trees
Will make you a man in a day.
The smell of the soil and the breath of the trees
Will blow all your troubles away.
There’s pine for you, wine for you, hope for you there—
The sun and the moon and the star—
If the ways of the city are not on the square,
Get up in the woods—where they are.”
(from the publication Timber and Plywood)
Probably Malloch’s best know poem was titled “Today,” a 27-line ode to making
the best of life’s daily storms and troubles.
Over the years as a guest lecturer, Malloch traveled over a million miles,
addressing trade conventions, business groups and social welfare
organizations. He displayed a homespun philosophy and a genial sense of
humor.
One of Malloch’s best know poems locally was “This Thing That Men Call Death,”
which he wrote as a eulogy and memorial tribute upon the death of Charles
Hackley in 1905.
In 1911, members of the Chicago Press Club named Malloch president of their
organization. On March 9, 1912, Malloch personally welcomed the President
of the United States, William Howard Taft, to a reception in Chicago sponsored
by the Press Club.
Mr. Malloch married Bertha Keillor of Muskegon in 1898. She died June 30,
1933.
Douglas Malloch died of a heart attack July 2, 1938, at age 61. At the
time of his death he served as the managing editor of American Lumberman.
He left behind two daughters and a son. (Except as
noted, the above descriptions were taken from local newspaper accounts.)
All the best......
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