I Used To Know That Part 2

Thou art more lovely and more temperate;

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Romeo and Juliet: The original star-crossed lovers. Romeo is a Montague, Juliet a Capulet, and the two families hate each other. Romeo and Juliet secretly marry. However, Juliet has already been commissioned to marry her cousin, Paris. To get out of this, Juliet comes up with one of those clever schemes that you just know will go wrong: She takes a potion that puts her into a coma for a couple of days so that everyone thinks she is dead. The message telling Romeo about this goes astray (of course), and he arrives at her tomb believing that she is dead. He poisons himself just before she wakes up, so Juliet, discovering him dead, stabs herself with his dagger.

The balcony scene is full of famous lines. For example, when Romeo lurks in the garden, Juliet appears on the balcony above and, talking to herself, says: O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?...

What's in a name? That which we call a rose,

By any other name would smell as sweet.

And at the end of the scene, she says:Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow

That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.

The Taming of the Shrew: Katharina is too bad-tempered to secure a husband, but her father will not allow her younger (and better behaved) sister, Bianca, to accept any of her many suitors until Katharina is married. Petruchio comes along and accepts the challenge, more or less beating Kate into submission. Twenty-first-century feminists do not care for this play, although Cole Porter's musical version, Kiss Me Kate, is wonderful.

Twelfth Night: Twins Viola and Sebastian become separated in a storm, and each believes the other dead. Viola disguises herself as a boy, Cesario, and enters the service of Duke Orsino, with whom she falls in love. Orsino, however, is in love with Olivia and uses Cesario as a messenger to woo her. Olivia-you guessed it-falls in love with Cesario, and it takes the reappearance of Sebastian to make everyone live happily ever after. The subplot concerns Olivia's pompous steward, Malvolio, who is conned by Olivia's uncle and his friends into believing that Olivia is in love with him and that she wishes to see him wearing yellow stockings and cross garters. The well-known saying "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them" appears in the letter that Malvolio believes Olivia has written to him.

Other Notable British Authors.

North American Authors.

There is a countless number of American writers who have earned their rightful place in literary history. While it is tricky to capture all of them in one relatively brief chapter, here are some that many students have come to know very well.

* PEARL BUCK (1892-1973) Winner of both the n.o.bel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize, Buck wrote more than 100 t.i.tles, as well as short stories, plays, a book of verse, children's books, biographies, and a cookbook-much while sitting in her office at her Bucks County, Pennsylvania farmhouse watching her eight children play outside her window. Brought to China from Virginia as a young girl, Buck lived among the missionaries and based much of her work on her travels to Asia. In addition to the best-selling The Good Earth, a few other works by Buck include Dragon Seed, East Wind: West Wind, and the House of Earth trilogy. She also founded the charitable organization Pearl S. Buck International, which helps children around the world who have been marginalized due to mixed heredity, disease, hunger, poverty, or other tragic circ.u.mstances.

* STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900) Writer and journalist, Crane died at 28 years old and will forever be remembered for the required-reading novel, the Red Badge of Courage, which details the horrors of war experienced by a young soldier. This cla.s.sic is based on memoirs and interviews with Civil War veterans.

* RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-82) Essayist, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet, Emerson greatly influenced the transcendentalist movement of the mid-1800s. His a.s.sociations include Henry David Th.o.r.eau (Walden Pond was on his property) and Nathaniel Hawthorne and his neighbor Louisa May Alcott. His collected essays included "Self-Reliance," which warned people to avoid conformity and to follow their own ideas and instincts. "Nature," "Circles," and "The Poet" are a few of his other most successful pieces.

* WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897-1962) Known for his stream of consciousness, Faulkner's literary technique depicts what is going on in the speaker's head rather than simply relating the person's dialogue with others. In his novel As I Lay Dying, Faulkner presents 15 different points of view. Other well-known novels include The Sound and the Fury; Light in August; Absalom, Absalom; and The Unvanquished.

* F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was the namesake and second cousin three times removed of the author of the United States' National Anthem. His six finished novels, including Tender Is the Night and This Side of Paradise and many short stories evoke the Jazz Age and his tumultuous relations.h.i.+p with his wife, Zelda Sayre. Like a fine wine, his masterpiece The Great Gatsby is about the futility and moral decay of the wealthy that gets even better with age. Fitzgerald died at 44, considering himself a failed writer. However, Gatsby continues as a best seller and is often required reading for many high school and college students.

* NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864) Who could forget the Scarlet Letter's all-too-human Hester Prynne, who-after being separated from her cool-hearted husband (Chillingworth)-has a pa.s.sionate affair with her charismatic minister. The Puritans chide her and force her to wear a scarlet "A" upon her breast, advertising her sin. Hester dutifully (and wisely) protects Pastor Dimmesdale from public scorn, but his conscience catches up to him. The story warns of the scourge of sin and that people can be downright self-righteous. A few other examples from his published works include The House of the Seven Gables; a short-story collection, Twice-Told Tales, and the short stories "The Birthmark" and "Young Goodman Brown."

* JOSEPH h.e.l.lER (1923-1999) Although he is often regarded as one of the best post-World War II satirists, h.e.l.ler's career included stints as a blacksmith's apprentice, a B-25 bombardier, and an advertising copywriter. However, his novel Catch-22 is one of the few whose t.i.tle has created an idiom rather than employing an existing quotation. The plot centers on a group of American fighter pilots in Italy during World War II and their efforts to avoid flying suicidal missions. The problem is that the only way they can get out of flying missions is if they are crazy-but the moment they ask to be grounded because flying the missions is crazy, they are deemed to be entirely sane, and therefore fit to fly.

* ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899-1961) Remember the determined Santiago, the aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a marlin in the Gulf Stream? The Old Man and the Sea won the n.o.bel Prize in Literature in 1954 and has been heavily a.n.a.lyzed in cla.s.srooms for its symbolism ever since. Hemingway, however, is posthumously quoted in a 1999 issue of Time ("An American Storyteller") as saying, "No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in.... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough, they would mean many things." Hemingway was frank and wickedly tough, evident in some of his other great works: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

* ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891-1960) Once criticized for her cultural depictions and political views, Hurston's work, Their Eyes Were Watching G.o.d, has grown into a seminal work for African-American and feminist writers, and it is a darn good read. The story relates the struggles of Janie Sparks, who in the end says, "Two things everybody got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh G.o.d, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." Hurston's work grew from the Harlem Renaissance and was revived in the 1970s after an article in Ms. by Color Purple author Alice Walker.

* WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING (1783-1859) Known for the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which tells of the unfortunate disappearance of Ichabod Crane one autumn night after being pursued by the infamous headless horseman (the ghost of a Hessian soldier who had his head blown off during the American Revolution). Irving also wrote the Grimm-influenced (some say stolen) Rip Van Winkle, where a henpecked husband who hates his honey-do list heads for the hills. He then takes the drink of some bowling ghosts and falls asleep for a mere 20 years, waking up to a changed geographical and political landscape, a foot-long beard, and a deceased wife. Rip, however, resumes his old walks and habits.

* HENRY JAMES (1843-1916) Although born in New York City, James eventually settled in England, becoming a British subject shortly before his death. James often wrote books that crossed the continents. The Portrait of a Lady was adapted for film in 1996, directed by Jane Campion. The story involves a newly wealthy, young American woman who travels to Europe and becomes scammed into marriage by two U.S. expatriates. James's other admired works include Was.h.i.+ngton Square, The Bostonians, and his shorter pieces, "The Aspern Papers," and "The Turn of the Screw."

* HARPER LEE (1926- ) Born in Monroeville, Alabama, Lee was a childhood friend and next-door neighbor of novelist Truman Capote. In 1956 some close friends gave her a year's salary for Christmas so she could take the time to write. Within that time she wrote one book, To Kill a Mockingbird, which was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. The novel depicts the story of a white lawyer in a Deep South town who defends a black man who is wrongly accused of raping a white girl.

* HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-91) You either love him or hate him, but one thing is for sure: After you read Moby d.i.c.k, you will know how to tie several different knots. Melville's immense detail and multileveled symbolism combine to make what is often called the epitome of American Romanticism (of epic proportions). The first chapter opens with the famous line "Call me Ishmael." Then soon the reader is afloat on this vessel as it ventures forth, fighting to surmount both fate and nature. Melville wrote other works, such as Pierre and the unfinished Billy Budd.

* LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY (1874-1942) Her works would become a favorite of young women around the world, and whose famous protagonist Anne s.h.i.+rley once said, "Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?" Some other "Anne" books include: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, and Anne's House of Dreams. In 1985 a miniseries based on her first novel was among one of the highest-rated programs of any genre to air on Canadian television and won several awards. The films starred Megan Follows as Anne and Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla Cuthbert.

* EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) Poe's major success, The Raven, was published two years before the death of his first wife (his 13-year-old first cousin). After this unfortunate event and scandalous allegations of amorous indiscretions, Poe became dejected and began drinking. Two years later he was sc.r.a.ped off the streets of Baltimore, sick and delirious, and he died soon after. His wife's death influenced his writing, such as in Annabel Lee. Poe has a long list of bone-chilling stories, including The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Pit and the Pendulum. Many of his tales were adapted for film in the 1960s and starred horror legend Vincent Price.

* J. D. SALINGER (1919-2010) The reclusive Salinger's biggest success is The Catcher in the Rye, the ultimate disaffected-teenager novel. It is told in the first person by sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield, who loathes everything to do with his life and his parents' "phony" middle-cla.s.s values. Although the novel was written in 1951, it remains popular and sells approximately 250,000 copies a year.

* JOHN STEINBECK (1920-68) While growing up Steinbeck worked as a hired hand on nearby ranches, which fostered his impressions of the California countryside and its people. These thoughts contributed to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The book tells the story of the Joad family, who after the Oklahoma dust bowl disaster of the 1930s abandon their land and head for what they imagine is "Promised Land" in California, only to find that life is no easier there. His novels Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row also achieved critical acclaim.

* HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-96) Best known as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a violent antislavery novel (published in 1852, when this was the political hot potato in America). According to legend, when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862 he said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War!" Her writing career spanned 51 years, during which she published 30 books and countless shorter pieces as well as raising seven children. A year after she and her family moved into their Hartford, Connecticut house, Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, moved into a house just across the lawn.

* HENRY DAVID Th.o.r.eAU (1817-62) Sometimes called the father of environmentalism, he stated, "Thank G.o.d men cannot fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth." He retreated to the woodland, isolating himself from society and wrote Walden, an account of simple living in natural surroundings. He also wrote an essay on Civil Disobedience after being arrested for not paying his taxes, which he did to protest slavery and the Mexican-American War.

* MARK TWAIN (1835-1910) (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) Drawing on his experience as a river pilot, this author's pen name comes from a riverboat term for two fathoms or 12 feet when the depth of water is sounded; "Mark twain" means that it is safe to navigate. Although Twain was also a popular humorist, satirist, and lecturer, he is best known as the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which drew on his childhood in the Mississippi River port of Hannibal, Missouri, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a much more serious book-sometimes called the Great American Novel-that had the issue of slavery at its heart.

* BOOKER T. WAs.h.i.+NGTON (1856-1915) A former slave, freed after the Civil War, this author and educator worked tirelessly through school. He later became a noted educator and major proponent of education and rights for African Americans, working to establish vocational schools so they could learn trades, obtain jobs, and bolster their standing in society. The details of his life can be found in his compelling autobiography and best seller, Up from Slavery.

* EDITH WHARTON (1862-1937) She became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921, for The Age of Innocence, which deals with upper-cla.s.s society in New York City during the turn of the century, where marriage for connection was encouraged. Wharton could subtly poke fun at the upper cla.s.ses, while displaying a warm, sympathetic tone. She had ample time and opportunity to observe her subjects, since her maiden name was Edith Newbold Jones, the wealthy family a.s.sociated with the adage "Keeping up with the Joneses." Some of her other notable works include The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, and her unfinished work (finished in 1993 by Marion Mainwaring) The Buccaneers, which was adapted for Masterpiece Theatre in 1995-a series that was soon forgotten.

British Poets.

The myths, legends, and romance of the major British poets have sparked millions of imaginations. The following list mentions just a handful of the most familiar ones.

* W(YSTAN) H(UGH) AUDEN (1907-73, English) Shot to renewed fame 20 years after his death, thanks to the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, which is recited at the funeral, is taken from his "Twelve Songs."

* ROBERT BURNS (1759-96, determinedly Scottish) His birthday was January 25, and for some reason many people still celebrate the event by eating haggis and reciting his poetry. In addition to the wonderfully bloodthirsty "Address to a Haggis," he also wrote "To a Mouse" (Wee sleekit, cow'rin' tim'rous beastie and The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft a-gley) and the words of Auld Lang Syne.

* GEORGE GORDON BYRON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824, English/Scottish) The one who awoke one morning and found myself famous after the publication of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. He led a wild life, left England after one scandal too many, lived in Italy, where he was friendly with Sh.e.l.ley, then fought for Greek insurgents against the Turks. He died at Missolonghi, in Greece, of rheumatic fever.

* GEOFFREY CHAUCER (c.1340-1400, English) Chaucer is credited as being one of the first great poets to write in English rather than in French or Latin. Although his language is pretty unfamiliar to the uninitiated, he is best known for The Canterbury Tales, in which a party of outrageous pilgrims travel from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London, to Canterbury Cathedral, where they tell stories to pa.s.s the time. The prologue presents a vivid portrait of 14th-century life; among the best-known tellers of tales are the Knight, the Miller, the Man of Law, and the Wife of Bath.

* SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834, English) He wrote only two famous poems-one of them unfinished-but what successes they were: "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (that's the one about the wedding guest and the albatross) and "Kubla Khan" (In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure-dome decree). His friend Wordsworth could have learned a useful lesson about quality versus quant.i.ty.

* JOHN DONNE (1572-1631, English) The greatest of the metaphysical poets (a loose term for a group of 17th-century poets whose work investigated the world using intellect rather than intuition). His most famous line, "No man is an Island, entire of itself," oft misquoted, is from a book of devotions rather than a poem.

* T(HOMAS) S(TEARNS) ELIOT (1888-1965, American-born, worked in England) Author of "The Wasteland" (April is the cruellest month) and "The Love Song of J. Arthur Prufrock."

* THOMAS GRAY (1717-71, English) Gets a mention here because we all have read his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

If you wrote only one poem in your life, you probably would have been quite happy to have written that one.1 * JOHN KEATS (1795-1821, English) Another great Romantic, he's the one who died at the intimidatingly young age of 26 of consumption in Rome-you can visit his house, located near the Spanish Steps. "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" (O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms/ Alone and palely loitering?), "Ode to a Nightingale" (My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk), "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (Much have I travelled in the realms of gold) and "To Autumn" (Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness).

* RUDYARD KIPLING (1865-1936, English) Prolific chronicler of the soldier's lot in South Africa and India, but best known for "If:"If you can keep your head while all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you...

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same...

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

* JOHN MILTON (1608-74, English).

Best known for his epic poems, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, which were composed in his later years while blind; Areopagitica, Milton's treatise on censors.h.i.+p, also earned him recognition.