Carol Ann Duffy - Author Series

Author Series 

Carol Ann Duffy

* 1955-

* She is a Scottish poet and a playwright.

* Professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. (Appointed in 1996).

* She was appointed as Britain’s Poet Laureate in May 2009 (a poet laureate is elected for a term of 10 years now).

* She is the first woman, the first Scott and the first openly LGBT woman to hold the position of poet laureate.

* Her collections include:

        Standing Female Nude (1985)

        Selling Manhattan (1987)

        Meantime (1993)

        Rapture (2005)

* Her poem addresses issues such as oppression, gender and violence, in an accessible language that has made them popular in schools.

* She worked as poetic critic for ‘The Guardian’ from 1988-1989, and she was the editor of poetry magazine'Ambit’.

* In 1999 she was elected as the Royal Society of Literature.

* In her first poem as a poet laureate, Duffy talked about the scandal over British MP’s expenses in the format of sonnet.

* Her third The Twelve Days of Christmas 2009, addresses current events such as species extinctions, the climate change conference in Copenhagen, the banking crisis and war in Afghanistan.

* In March 2010, she wrote Achilles (for David Beckham) about Achilles Tendon injury that left England footballer David Beckham out of 2010 FIFA World Cup.

* Silver Lining written in April 2010, acknowledges the grounding of flights caused by ash of islandic volcanoes.

 

* On 30 Aug 2010, she premiered her poem Vigil for the Manchester Pride Candlelight Vigil in the memory of LGBT people who have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS.

* She wrote a 46 lines poem Rings for the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton

* She wrote the poem The Throne, which she composed for the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.

* Duffy is also a playwright and her plays are performed at the Liverpool Playhouse and the Almeida Theatre in London.

* Her play includes Take My Husband (1982), Cavern of Dreams (1984), Little Woman, Big Boys (1986), Loss (1986) and Casanova (2007).

* Her children collection includes Meeting Midnight (1999) and The Oldest Girl in the World (2000).

Important Works of Carol Ann Duffy

* flesh weather cock and Other Poems (1974)

* Beauty and the Beast (1977) (poetry with Adrian Henri)

* Fifth Last Song; Poetry (1982)

* Take My Husband; Play (1982).

* Cavern of Dreams; Play (1984).

* Standing Female Nude (1985)

* Little Woman, Bad Boys; Play (1986)

* Loss (Radio Play-1986)

* Thrown Voices; Poetry (1986)

* Selling Manhattan; Poetry (1987)

* Grimm Tales; Play (1996)

* Stopping for Woods; Poetry (1996)

* The World’s Wife; Poetry (1999)

* The Oldest Girl in the World; Children’s Poetry (2000)

* Rapture Picador (2005)

* Mrs. Scrooge : A Christmas Poem (2009)

* Mean Time (1993)

* Feminine Gospel (2002)

Top 5 Great works by American writers

Top 5 Great works by American writers:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925). Perhaps the most searching fable of the American Dream ever written, this glittering novel of the Jazz Age paints an unforgettable portrait of its day — the flappers, the bootleg gin, the careless, giddy wealth. Self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby, determined to win back the heart of the girl he loved and lost, emerges as an emblem for romantic yearning, and the novel’s narrator, Nick Carroway, brilliantly illuminates the post–World War I end to American innocence.

2.Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884). Hemingway proclaimed, “All modern American literature comes from . . . ‘Huckleberry Finn.’ ” But one can read it simply as a straightforward adventure story in which two comrades of conve­ nience, the parentally abused rascal Huck and fugitive slave Jim, escape the laws and conventions of society on a raft trip down the Mississippi. Alternatively, it’s a subversive satire in which Twain uses the only superficially naïve Huck to comment bitingly on the evils of racial bigotry, religious hypocrisy, and capitalist greed he observes in a host of other largely unsympathetic characters. Huck’s climactic decision to “light out for the Territory ahead of the rest” rather than submit to the starched standards of “civilization” reflects a uniquely American strain of individualism and nonconformity stretching from Daniel Boone to Easy Rider.

3.Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851). This sweeping saga of obsession, vanity, and vengeance at sea can be read as a harrowing parable, a gripping adventure story, or a semiscientific chronicle of the whaling industry. No matter, the book rewards patient readers with some of fiction’s most memorable characters, from mad Captain Ahab to the titular white whale that crippled him, from the honorable pagan Queequeg to our insightful narrator/surrogate (“Call me”) Ishmael, to that hell-bent vessel itself, the Pequod.

4.. The stories of Flannery O’Connor (1925–64). Full of violence, mordant comedy, and a fierce Catholic vision that is bent on human salvation at any cost, Flannery O’Connor’s stories are like no others. Bigots, intellectual snobs, shyster preachers, and crazed religious seers —a full cavalcade of what critics came to call “grotesques”—careen through her tales, and O’Connor gleefully displays the moral inadequacy of all of them. Twentieth-century short stories often focus on tiny moments, but O’Connor’s stories, with their unswerving eye for vanity and their profound sense of the sacred, feel immense..

5. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929). A modernist classic of Old South decay, this novel circles the travails of the Compson family from four different narrative perspectives. All are haunted by the figure of Caddy, the only daughter, whom Faulkner described as “a beautiful and tragic little girl.” Surrounding the trials of the family itself are the usual Faulkner suspects: alcoholism, suicide, racism, religion, money, and violence both seen and unseen. In the experimental style of the book, Quentin Compson summarizes the confused honor and tragedy that Faulkner relentlessly evokes: “theres a curse on us its not our fault is it our fault.”

DEATH OF A SALESMAN || BY ARTHUR MILLER

DEATH OF A SALESMAN || BY ARTHUR MILLER 

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Reality and illusion 

Death of a Salesman uses flashbacks to present Willy's memory during the reality. The illusion not only "suggests the past, but also presents the lost pastoral life." Willy has dreamed of success his whole life and makes up lies about his and Biff's success. The more he indulges in the illusion, the harder it is for him to face reality. Biff is the only one who realizes that the whole family lived in the lies and tries to face the truth.

Willy Loman 

Willy Loman dreams of being a successful salesman like Dave Singleman, somebody who has both wealth and freedom. Willy believes that the key to success is being well-liked, and his frequent flashbacks show that he measures happiness in terms of wealth and popularity.One analyst of the play writes: "Society tries to teach that, if people are rich and well-liked, they will be happy. Because of this, Willy thought that money would make him happy. He never bothered to try to be happy with what he had ..."Willy also believes that to attain success, one must have a suitable personality. According to another analyst, "He believes that salesmanship is based on 'sterling traits of character' and 'a pleasing personality.' But Willy does not have the requisite sterling traits of character; people simply do not like him as much as he thinks is necessary for success."

Uncle Ben

Ben symbolizes another kind of successful American Dream for Willy: to catch opportunity, to conquer nature, and to gain a fortune. His mantra goes: "Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. (He laughs.) And by God I was rich."

Biff 

After seeing his father's real identity, Biff does not follow his father's "dream" because he knows that, as two analysts put it, "Willy does see his future but in a blind way. Meaning that he can and cannot see at the same time, since his way of seeing or visualizing the future is completely wrong."

Charley and Bernard 

The hard work and dedication of Charley and Bernard are apparent from the Death of a Salesman. Willy criticizes Charley and Bernard throughout the play, but it is not because he hates them. Rather, it's argued that he is envious of the successes they have enjoyed, which is outside his standards.

The models of business success provided in the play all argue against Willy's "personality theory". One is Charley, Willy's neighbor and apparently only friend. Charley has no time for Willy's theories of business, but he provides for his family and is in a position to offer Willy a do-nothing job to keep him bringing home a salary.

#americandream #deathofasalesman #arthurmill #netenglish #americanliterature #AmericanNovels #AmericanHistory #willyloman

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o was born on 5 January, 1938. He is a Kenyan writer and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal “Mũtĩiri”. His short story “The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright”, is translated into 94 languages from around the world.

Ngũgĩ was born in Kamiriithu, near Limuru in Kiambu district, Kenya, He went to the Alliance High School, and went on to study at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda. As a student he attended the African Writers Conference held at Makerere in June 1962, and his play “The Black Hermit” premiered as part of the event at The National Theatre. Ngũgĩ received his B.A. in English from Makerere University College in 1963.

Ngugi's literary works were concerned with major social, cultural, and political problems in Kenya, past and present. His first two novels, Weep Not, Child (1964) and The River Between (1965), set in the colonial period of his childhood, focused on the traumatic effects of the Mau Mau uprising on Gikuyu family life and on the impact of the independent schools movement on rural Gikuyu society. His third novel, A Grain of Wheat (1967), combined memories of the Mau Mau era with a depiction of Kenya on the eve of independence—a time of great bitterness, Ngugi claimed, "for the peasants who fought the British yet who now see all that they fought for being put on one side." In Petals of Blood (1977), his longest and most complex novel, he described in even greater detail the exploitation of Kenya's masses by its own established elite. Ngugi always sympathized with the oppressed and underprivileged people in his nation. Ngũgĩ was subsequently imprisoned for over a year. Adopted as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, the artist was released from prison, and fled Kenya. In the United States, he taught at Yale University for some years, and has since also taught at New York University, with a dual professorship in Comparative literature and Performance Studies, and at the University of California, Irvine. Ngũgĩ has frequently been regarded as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote political and cultural essays in English. These miscellaneous pieces have been collected in four volumes: Homecoming: Essays on African and Caribbean Literature, Culture and Politics (1971), Writers in Politics (1981), Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-Colonial Kenya (1983), Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), and Moving the Centers: The Struggle for Cultural Freedom (1993). He also produced an autobiographical work based on his year behind bars: Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary (1981). He also wrote two children's books Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus and Njamba Nene's Pistol, both in 1995. For his literary accomplishment, Ngugi has received many awards. He received the Distinguished Africanist Award from the New York African Studies Association (1996), the Fonlon-Nichols prize (1996), the Zora Neale Hurston-Paul Robeson Award (1993), the Lotus prize for Afro-Asian literature (1973), UNESCO first prize (1963), and the East Africa Novel Prize (1962). Among his children is the author Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ.

VIRGINIA WOOLF'S A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN (1929)

VIRGINIA WOOLF'S A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN (1929)

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In her highly influential critical A Room of One's Own (1929), Virginial Woolf studied the cultural, economical and educational disabilities within the patriarchal system that prevent women from realising their creative potential. With her imaginary character Judith (Shakespeare's fictional sister), she illustrated that a woman with Shakespeare's faculties would have been denied the opportunities that Shakespeare enjoyed. Examining the careers and works of woman authors like Aphra Benn, Jane Austen George Eliot and the Bronte sisters, Woolf argued that the patriarchal education system and reading practices condition (or "interpellate," to use an Althusserian term) women to read from men's point of view, and make them internalise the aesthetics and literary values created/ adopted by male authors and critics within the patriarchal system — wherein, these values, although male centered are assumed and promoted as universal.

It is in this polemical work, that Woolf suggested that language is gendered, thus inaugurating the language debate, and argued that the woman author, having no other language at her command, is forced to use the sexist/ masculine language. Dale Spender (in her Man Made Language) as well as the French Feminists primarily investigated the gendered nature of language- Helene Cixous (Ecriture Feminine), Julia Kristeva (chora, semiotic language) and Luce Irigaray (Ecriture Feminine).

Woolf also realized the need for a narrative form to capture the fluid, incoherent female experiences that defy order and rationality; and hence her employment of the stream-of-consciousness technique in her novels, capturing the lives of Mrs Dalloway, Mrs Ramsay and so on. Inspired by the psychological theories of Carl Jung, Woolf also proposed the concept of the androgynous creative mind, which she fictionalised through Orlando, in an attempt to go beyond the male/female binary. She believed that the best artists were always a combination of the man and the woman or "woman-manly" or "man-womanly".

Commentary

Woolf was already connecting feminism to anti-fascism in A Room of One’s Own, which addresses in some detail the relations between politics and aesthetics. The book is based on lectures Woolf gave to women students at Cambridge, but its innovatory style makes it read in places like a novel, blurring boundaries between criticism and fiction. It is regarded as the first modern primer for feminist literary criticism, not least because it is also a source of many, often conflicting, theoretical positions. The title alone has had enormous impact as cultural shorthand for a modern feminist agenda. Woolf ’s room metaphor not only signifies the declaration of political and cultural space for women, private and public, but the intrusion of women into spaces previously considered the spheres of men. A Room of One’s Own is not so much about retreating into a private feminine space as about interruptions, trespassing and the breaching of boundaries (Kamuf, 1982: 17). It oscillates on many thresholds, performing numerous contradictory turns of argument (Allen, 1999). But it remains a readable and accessible work, partly because of its playful fictional style: the narrator adopts a number of fictional personae and sets out her argument as if it were a story. In this reader-friendly manner some complicated critical and theoretical issues are introduced. Many works of criticism, interpretation and theory have developed from Woolf’s original points in A Room of One’s Own, and many critics have pointed up the continuing relevance of the book, not least because of its open construction and resistance to intellectual closure (Stimpson, 1992: 164; Laura Marcus, 2000: 241). Its playful narrative strategies have divided feminist responses, most notably prompting Elaine Showalter’s disapproval (Showalter, 1977: 282).

The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set

The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey. This loose collective of friends and relatives was closely associated with the University of Cambridge for the men and King's College London for the women, and they lived, worked or studied together near Bloomsbury, London. According to Ian Ousby, "although its members denied being a group in any formal sense, they were united by an abiding belief in the importance of the arts." Their works and outlook deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality. A well-known quote, attributed to Dorothy Parker, is "they lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles".

Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel

Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel-: 

Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel ,often published as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of persons and behaviours within society. Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, modelled the authoritarian government in the novel after Stalinist Russia. More broadly, the novel examines the role of truth and facts within politics and the ways in which they are manipulated.

The story takes place in an imagined future, the year 1984, when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism, and propaganda. Great Britain, known as Airstrip One, has become a province of a totalitarian superstate named Oceania that is ruled by the Party who employ the Thought Police to persecute individuality and independent thinking. Big Brother, the leader of the Party, enjoys an intense cult of personality despite the fact that he may not even exist. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a diligent and skillful rank-and-file worker and Outer Party member who secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion. He enters into a forbidden relationship with a colleague, Julia, and starts to remember what life was like before the Party came to power.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has become a classic literary example of political and dystopian fiction. It also popularised the term "Orwellian" as an adjective, with many terms used in the novel entering common usage, including "Big Brother", "doublethink", "thoughtcrime", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "2 + 2 = 5", "proles", "Two Minutes Hate", "telescreen", and "Room 101". Time included it on its 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It was placed on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, reaching No. 13 on the editors' list and No. 6 on the readers' list. In 2003, the novel was listed at No. 8 on The Big Read survey by the BBC. Parallels have been drawn between the novel's subject matter and real life instances of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression among other themes.

The Blue Stockings Society

The Blue Stockings Society was an informal women's social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century, emphasizing education and mutual cooperation. It was founded in the early 1750s by Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey and others as a literary discussion group, a step away from traditional, non-intellectual women's activities. Both men and women were invited to attend, including the botanist, translator and publisher Benjamin Stillingfleet, who was not rich enough to dress properly for the occasion and appeared in everyday blue worsted stockings. The term came to refer to the informal quality of the gatherings and the emphasis on conversation over fashion.

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL (1681)

ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL (1681) 

A political satire in heroic couplets by John Dryden, published in 1681, and  

continued (Part II) mainly by Nahum Tate, published in 1682. Dryden used the biblical story  

of King David and his rebellious son Absalom to portray allegorically a current crisis about  

who should be the next king after the death of Charles II. Charles had no legitimate son, so  

that his heir was his brother James, Duke of York, a professed Catholic. His succession was  

feared as a menace to the Church of England and the liberty of Parliament; in consequence,  

the opposition (Whig) party tried to pass a law excluding James from the throne and  

substituting Charles’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. Dryden’s poem was  

intended to influence the public against the Whigs and their leader, Anthony Ashley Cooper,  

Earl of Shaftesbury. His use of the biblical story simultaneously blackened the opposition  

and sanctified the king, who supported his brother, and their party. The biblical David stands  

for Charles; Absalom for Monmouth; Achitophel (Absalom’s evil Tempter) for  

Shaftesbury. This satire is Dryden’s most famous work.

KING LEAR SUMMARY

KING LEAR SUMMARY:

Lear, the aging king of Britain, decides to step down from the throne and divide his kingdom among his three daughters. First, however, he puts his daughters through a test, asking each to tell him how much she loves him. Goneril and Regan, Lear’s older daughters, give their father flattering answers. But Cordelia, Lear’s youngest and favorite daughter, remains silent, saying that she has no words to describe how much she loves her father. Lear flies into a rage and disowns Cordelia. The king of France, who has courted Cordelia, says that he still wants to marry her even without her land, and she accompanies him to France without her father’s blessing.

Lear quickly learns that he made a bad decision. Goneril and Regan swiftly begin to undermine the little authority that Lear still holds. Unable to believe that his beloved daughters are betraying him, Lear slowly goes insane.

Meanwhile, an elderly nobleman named Gloucester also experiences family problems. His illegitimate son, Edmund, tricks him into believing that his legitimate son, Edgar, is trying to kill him. Fleeing the manhunt that his father has set for him, Edgar disguises himself as a crazy beggar and calls himself “Poor Tom.” Like Lear, he heads out onto the heath.

When the loyal Gloucester realizes that Lear’s daughters have turned against their father, he decides to help Lear in spite of the danger. Regan and her husband, Cornwall, discover him helping Lear, accuse him of treason, blind him, and turn him out to wander the countryside. 

In Dover, a French army lands as part of an invasion led by Cordelia in an effort to save her father. Goneril and Edmund conspire to kill Albany.

 Meanwhile, the English troops reach Dover, and the English, led by Edmund, defeat the Cordelia-led French. Lear and Cordelia are captured. In the climatic scene, Edgar duels with and kills Edmund; we learn

 of the death of Gloucester; Goneril poisons Regan out of jealousy over Edmund and then kills herself when her treachery is revealed to Albany; Edmund’s betrayal of Cordelia leads to her needless execution in prison; and Lear finally dies out of grief at Cordelia’s passing. Albany, Edgar, and the elderly Kent are left to take care of the country under a cloud of sorrow and regret.