Tag Archives: Novels

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An Analysis of “Knock Knock” by Daniel Beaty

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I have not had an immediate stifling of sobbing in a while. After reading “Knock Knock” by Daniel Beaty, that streak is ended. All I can really say is that being a parent has changed me emotionally. To this point, I have to be mindful of the content of some books and films. Regardless, Beaty’s “Knock Knock” reminded me of those stabbing memories that come at me from the dark sometimes. I guess life is like that. A constant reminder of the good and the bad.

Beaty writes that, “I knock knock as my mama pulls me away / Before my papa even says a word,” and we know the intense emotional validity of his poem. A child adores their parents regardless if they are flawed. Years later they understand this truth, but emotional maturity comes from recognizing this pain and learning from it to better oneself. Beaty writes that his father failed to provide him with what he needed to be a father himself. Using this failure, he could advise his own son in far better ways. He writes that, “And so I write these words and try to heal / And try to father myself /And I dream up a father who says the words my father did not.” It is a perfect reflection on life’s failures and emerging from such rubble.

We have a lot of strange memories that hang around in our heads. Sometimes it’s for no other reason than to bother us unnecessarily. Other times, it’s to remind us of our own humanity and that we can become better parents than the ones we had.

“Knock Knock” by Daniel Beaty  

As a boy I shared a game with my father
Played it every morning ’til I was 3
He would knock knock on my door
And I’d pretend to be asleep

’til he got right next to the bed
Then I would get up and jump into his arms
“Good morning, Papa.”
And my papa he would tell me that he loved me
We shared a game
Knock Knock

Until that day when the knock never came
And my momma takes me on a ride past corn fields
On this never-ending highway ’til we reach a place of high
Rusty gates
A confused little boy
I entered the building carried in my mama’s arms
Knock Knock

We reach a room of windows and brown faces
Behind one of the windows sits my father
I jump out of my mama’s arms
And run joyously towards my papa
Only to be confronted by this window
I knock knock trying to break through the glass
Trying to get to my father
I knock knock as my mama pulls me away
Before my papa even says a word

And for years he has never said a word
And so twenty-five years later, I write these words
For the little boy in me who still awaits his papa’s knock
Papa, come home cause I miss you
I miss you waking me up in the morning and telling me you love me
Papa, come home, cause there’s things I don’t know
And I thought maybe you could teach me:
How to shave;
How to dribble a ball;
How to talk to a lady;
How to walk like a man
Papa, come home because I decided a while back
I wanted to be just like you
But I’m forgetting who you are

And twenty-five years later a little boy cries
And so I write these words and try to heal
And try to father myself
And I dream up a father who says the words my father did not

Dear Son

I’m sorry I never came home
For every lesson I failed to teach, hear these words:
Shave in one direction in strong deliberate strokes to avoid irritation
Dribble the page with the brilliance of your ballpoint pen
Walk like a god and your goddess will come to you
No longer will I be there to knock on your door
So you must learn to knock for yourself
Knock knock down doors of racism and poverty that I could not
Knock knock down doors of opportunity
For the lost brilliance of the black men who crowd these cells
Knock knock with diligence for the sake of your children
Knock knock for me for as long as you are free
These prison gates cannot contain my spirit
The best of me still lives in you
Knock knock with the knowledge that you are my son, but you are not my choices
Yes, we are our fathers’ sons and daughters
But we are not their choices
For despite their absences we are still here
Still alive, still breathing
With the power to change this world
One little boy and girl at a time
Knock knock
Who’s there?
We are

Works Cited

Beaty, D. (2013). Knock knock: My dad’s dream for me (B. Collier, Illus.). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Blog, Writing Craft

Ray Bradbury’s Hygiene of Writing Advice

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Listening to authors give interviews often helps us understand their process. That is to say, spur of the moment questions can be revealing. Author and speculative-fiction master Ray Bradbury has a wealth of great interviews that help listeners understand his approach to writing. Ray Bradbury’s writing concepts are both ideological and practical. Often times, understanding the spirit of his advice is what will push you toward success.

In this post, we are going to look at a transcript of a talk he gave on a specific approach to immersing oneself in the world of writing. The talk was published by The Narrative Art channel on YouTube, and I have published the transcript here. In this dialogue, he talks about the most important texts to consume if you are a budding author. It is certainly an interesting dissection of his process and his take on the “hygiene of writing” is enticing. If anything, I believe you can take something from his talk for your own writing.

Ray Bradbury and “The Hygiene of Writing” Transcript

“There’s a lot I want to say because I recognize the need many of you have to be writers, and you don’t want to do the wrong things. So for at least five minutes, I want to talk about the hygiene of writing for you so you won’t do anything wrong in the next year.

The first thing that comes to mind is the danger of writing novels to start. I don’t know how many of you are writing novels now. If they’re going well, you don’t have to listen to me. But the problem with novels is you could spend a whole year writing one, and it might not turn out well because you haven’t learned to write yet. The best hygiene for beginning writers—or intermediate writers—is to write a hell of a lot of short stories.

If you could write one short story a week, it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing. And at the end of a year, you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. It can’t be done. At the end of 30 weeks, or 40 weeks, or the end of the year, all of a sudden, a story will come that’s just wonderful.

That’s what happened to me. I started writing when I was 12, and I was 22 before I wrote my first decent short story. That’s a hell of a lot of writing—millions of words—because I was doing everything wrong to start. Of course, I was imitating. I had so many heroes that I wanted to be like. I liked H.G. Wells, I loved Jules Verne, I loved Conan Doyle—Sherlock Holmes, for God’s sake. Jeeves, I loved Wodehouse.

Well, you can’t be any of those things, can you? You may love them, but you can’t be those. I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs—Tarzan, John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Good Lord, wonderful stuff. The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum. You know, I always dreamt someday I could grow up and write an Oz book, but it’s not to be—not to be.

So the main thing I want to start with tonight is to get you to write more short stories. Then you’ll be in training. You’ll learn to compact things. You’ll learn to look for ideas. The psychological thing here is that every week, you’ll be happy. At the end of a week, you will have done something. But in a novel, you don’t know where the hell you’re going. At the end of a week, you don’t feel all that good. At the end of a month—I’ve been through novels. I waited until I was 30 before I wrote my first novel, and that was Fahrenheit 451. It was worth waiting for.

But I was fearful of novels. I recognized the danger of spending a year on something that might not be very good. And your second novel might not be very good, or your third one. But in the meantime, you could write 52 or 104 short stories, and you’re learning your craft. That’s the important thing.

Read people like Roald Dahl. Get his books of short stories. Get the short stories of G. de Maupassant. Get John Cheever, who has done some very good short stories over and above his novels. Richard Matheson, in my own field.

Nigel, an author named Nigel Kneale—K-N-E-A-L-E. Nigel Kneale. Read his short stories. John Collier—one of the greatest short story writers of this century. And you know you’ve never heard his name. Try and look him up. He’s out of print right now. I’m trying to get him back in print next year. John Collier, English writer. He wrote brilliant short stories that deeply affected me when I was 22 years old.

The more quality short stories you read from the start of the century—Edith Wharton’s short stories, save her novels till later. There are many women writers who influenced me. Katherine Anne Porter, her novellas, all of the short stories of Wharton. The Curtain Is Green by Eudora Welty. Wonderful short stories.

The more of these you can take in—and stay away from most modern anthologies of short stories, because they’re slices of life. They don’t go anywhere. They don’t have any metaphor. Have you looked at The New Yorker recently? Have you tried to read one of those stories? Didn’t it put you to sleep immediately? They don’t know how to write short stories.

Go read Washington Irving. Go read the short stories of Melville. Go read Edgar Allan Poe again. Go read Nathaniel Hawthorne, a writer of fantasy in the science fiction field. Many collections of short stories, because they all deal with metaphor.

And the sooner you recognize the ability of seeing a metaphor, and knowing how to write the metaphor, and to make collections of them, the better off you’ll be. Then you’ll be ready for the novel.

Maybe some of you here tonight are automatically good novelists. So I’m not talking to you. You’re fortunate that you were born that way. But I discovered along the way I was a collector of metaphors.

Now, I don’t know how I can teach you to recognize the metaphor when you see it. But what you’ve got to do from this night forward is stuff your head with more different things from various fields. Hygienically speaking, I’ll give you a program to follow every night—a very simple program for the next thousand nights.

Before you go to bed every night, read one short story. That’ll take you 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Then read one poem a night from the vast history of poetry. Stay away from most modern poems—it’s crap. It’s not poetry. It’s not poetry. Lines that look like poems? Go ahead and do it, but you’ll go nowhere.

But read the great poets. Go back and read Shakespeare. Read Alexander Pope. Read Robert Frost. But one poem a night. One short story a night. One essay a night for the next 1,000 nights, and from various fields—archaeology, zoology, biology, all the great philosophers of time, comparing them. Read the essays of Aldous Huxley. Read Loren Eiseley, a great anthropologist.

Maybe you’ve never heard of him—Loren Eiseley, E-I-S-E-L-E-Y. He was head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He became my friend 40 years ago. I read an essay of his in Harper’s, “The Fire Apes,” which was so brilliant I wrote him a fan letter.

I said, “Dear Dr. Eiseley, ‘The Fire Apes’ is the finest essay written in the last 20 years in any American magazine. Why don’t you write a book?” He wrote back and said, “Hey, that’s an idea. I think I will write a book.” And he wrote 17 books. But I was his papa, even though I was 15 years younger.

So reread all the books of Loren Eiseley. They’re crammed with pomegranate ideas. That’s why I want you to read essays in every field—on politics, analyzing literature. Pick your own.

But that means every night before you go to bed, you’re stuffing your head with one short story, one poem, and one essay. At the end of a thousand nights, Jesus God, you’ll be full of stuff, won’t you? You’ll be full of ideas and metaphors, along with your perceptions of life and your own personal experiences, which you put away—and what you see in your friends and relatives.

You want all these things to go in. And the more metaphors you can cram yourself with, they’ll bounce around inside your head and make new metaphors. That’s why you’re doing this. But you’ve got to be able to recognize one when you see one.

So hygienically speaking, you’ve got two things to do. If you feel you have to do a novel in spite of what I said, go do it. But in the meantime, write a hell of a lot of short stories. And then every night, do these three things with the short story, the poem, and the essay. And you’re well on your way to being more creative.

Conclusion

In considering Ray Bradbury’s writing advice, we have to understand the practical nature of what he is telling us as writers. If you want to become a better writer, you have to read more; and, his advice is asking you to focus on the classics when it comes to form and structure. If you understand the basics then you can play with the template, you can evolve your own writing, and you can certainly experiment with writing concepts.

Works Cited

“Ray Bradbury on the Dangers of Starting with a Novel.” The Narrative Art. June 13, 2016. Web, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWBF4R6MW-k

Literary Bios

James Joyce: Author of “Finnegans Wake” and “Ulysses”

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James Joyce falls right in line with modernist literature, although his work can be difficult to digest, unlike other modernist writers. However, as we know, just because literature can be difficult doesn’t mean we should discard it. For today’s post, let’s take a look at Joyce’s life and a few major works.

Early life

Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland on Feb. 2, 1882 as James Augustine Aloysius Joyce. Joyce was the oldest of ten children in a rather unstable household where his father failed to bring in enough money for a suitable household, instead falling to drink. Nevertheless, Joyce was a smart child and excelled in all modes of writing.

As the Britannica states:

“Because of his intelligence, Joyce’s family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College before finally landing at University College Dublin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on modern languages.”

(Britannica)

Joyce left for Paris after graduating and after departing for Ireland to tend to sick mother, he moved with his future wife to the Italian city of Trieste. There, Joyce taught English until he published Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. These books, though unremarkable at the time, found their way to prominent writers and poets, such as Ezra Pound.

James Joyce and Ulysses

Joyce began working on his landmark novel Ulysses, which showcased his virtuosic talent as a stream-of-conscious writer. However, detractors claimed its subject matter was less than savory.

Here’s a tame, descriptive excerpt:

“Suppose the communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother’s son don’t talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops.”

(Ulysses)

As you can see—it’s not exactly direct. However, it struck up a bit of controversy.

Writer Laura Miller writes, “One of the unexpected effects of the novel, which was first published in its entirety in Paris in 1922, was the most famous obscenity trial in U.S. history, conducted in 1933.”

Eventually the book got a fair shake (we’ll talk more about this in a later post), and it is currently revered for its challenging prose and style.

Joyce eventually settled down in Paris with his family and wrote Finnegans Wake (1939), which was also a success. With those two books alone (Ulysses and Finnegans Wake), Joyce cemented his status as a literary icon.

Joyce died following an “intestinal operation” on Jan. 12, 1941.

James Joyce’s Notable Works

Dubliners (1914)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

Ulysses (1922)

Finnegans Wake (1939)

Works Cited

Britannica. “James Joyce.” Sep. 12, 2019. Web.

Miller, Laura. “The Most Dangerous Book”: When ‘Ulysses’ was obscene.” Salon. June 16, 2014. Web.

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Knowledge on fire: why do book burnings happen?

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At the end of the endearing Kevin Bacon film Footloose (1984), John Lithgow, playing the antagonist Rev. Shaw Moore, realizes he has created a truly noxious environment of zealotry and closemindedness after his ban on dancing results in his flock piling books into a big pile with the intention to set it ablaze. Book burnings are a byproduct of fascist ideology in this case. Luckily, Lithgow convinces everybody to stop their staunch, entrenched antics, and therefore has an epiphany that resisting difference with extreme prejudice is not the right course of action.

As we know, Footloose is fiction…but that doesn’t mean book burnings and banning dance parties hasn’t happened. Unfortunately, wherever there is knowledge, there will be those who look to remove it, because facts and evidence can stand contrary to entire parties—and that really upsets oligarchs, demagogues, and dictators. For today’s post, let’s take a look at the world as Ray Bradbury envisioned it in Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and try to understand why burning books happens.

Knowledge is power. Literally.

Books allow the average person to learn more, which goes beyond just learning new facts, but books allow people to understand new narratives, new points of view, and new arguments (“Letter from Birmingham Jail” by MLK).

The more information and education that people have access to, the more likely they are going to challenge institutions of power—and, if you don’t know, that doesn’t always sound agreeable to those who are trying to maintain that power.

Professors Edward Glaeser, Giacomo Ponzetto, and Andrei Shleifer argue in “Why does Democracy need education?” that education and democracy are highly correlated.

“Education increases the society-wide support for democracy because democracy relies on people with high participation benefits for its support,” they write. “We show that better educated nations are more likely both to preserve democracy and to protect it from coups.”

“Why does Democracy need education?”

Without a doubt, this is important, because it argues that there is political power in being a well-read citizen. So, a good way to dissuade populations from challenging authority is by burning books that sow the seeds of education, because, as Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.” 

Creating new histories

Researchers have also suggested that conquering armies have targeted these domains of knowledge deliberately during wartime. Book burnings can create new histories.

 “… Books of poetry, philosophy and history were specifically targeted, so that (a new emperor, king, faction, etc.) couldn’t be compared to more virtuous or successful rulers of the past,” states writer Lorraine Boisoneault.

This goes specifically for Emperor Shih Huang Ti of China and Caliph Omar—the latter of which ordered over the burning of over 200,000 books from the Library of Alexandria because they stood in contrast to the religious ideology (Seeker).

And, I suppose, the elimination of knowledge is not the only reason books are burned, but it’s certainly a compelling and familiar rationale for perpetrators.

Symbolic action

As John Henley states writing for The Guardian:

“There’s something uniquely symbolic about the burning of books. It goes beyond censoring of beliefs and ideas. A book, plainly, is something more than ink and paper, and burning one (or many) means something more than destroying it by any other means.”

“Book-Burning: fanning the flames of hatred”

And what Henley is hinting at is what visual rhetoricians have been pointing out for years, which is that books have a life of their own—they are not static constructs. They evolve and change, and they can be interacted with and expanded upon.

For leaders who sometimes need an unchanging view of the world—a text’s very nature is incompatible.

While brief, hopefully this gives you some view of why regimes and institutions might see book burning as a suitable response to maintaining power. For tomorrow’s post, I will be discussing a few real-life examples.

Works Cited

“Why Did Nazis Burn Thousands of Books.” Seeker. Aug. 13, 2015. Web.

Boissoneault, Lorraine. “A Brief History of Book Burning, From the Printing Press to Internet Archives.” Smithsonian. Aug. 31, 2017. Web.

Glaeser, Edward, Ponzetto, Shleifer. “Why does democracy need education?” Springer Science, Business Media. May 31, 2007. Web.

Henley, Jon. “Book-Burning: fanning the flames of hatred.” The Guardian. Sept. 10, 2010. Web.

Rothman, Lily. “The Real History Behind Book Burning and Fahrenheit 451.” Time. May 18, 2018. Web.

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Unlocking Autumn Creativity in Writing

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There is something that pushes me to read and write in the fall. I am not quite sure what it is, but the handful of times I have tried my luck at writing a book, they occurred in the leafy months. Maybe it is the colder weather or the dwindling sunlight. Or, maybe it is the warm sweaters or (for the first time this year) joggers.

What is that Feeling?

I guess there is something writerly about the falling leaves and the blowing wind. And there is certainly something strange about the decorations some people place in their front yards. The ones featuring monsters with hatchets and zombie-infested nativity scenes. What is it about the macabre that gets my brain dancing in an imaginative swing? It is probably a good question for a psychoanalyst, but I would rather try to internalize my own madness. That way, I can convert it to creativity—if that is even possible.    

One of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, has given me all the creativity and material I need for the season. From his stories about Halloween trees to autumn carnivals, what more could you ask for? Yet, placing a tangible definition on that feeling is incredibly difficult.

It might be the decay and the turning of the cold, knowing cold nights are ahead.

Childlike Imagination and Wonder

I think, overall, there is a great deal of imagination this time of year. From the Halloween television specials to the fall books I have not read yet. Those will continue to sit on my shelf, I guess. There are artists creating works that they drop on social media that could be polite images of turkeys and pumpkins. Or, they are creatures from your worst nightmares (I enjoy them all, I think). It seems like after the summer everybody is ready to just sit down with a cup of hot java and start crafting some insular tales and images straight from the wilds of the October country.

Additionally, having a three-year-old child helps stimulate my brain because when she is around, I am always thinking of new and different ways to interact with her, which may include draping a blanket over my head and pretending to be a ghost or running around through the leaves outside. And then there are her shows. Her shows! Her shows (especially around the fall season) have crazy plot structures, insane characters, and settings straight from the brains of maniacs (I am definitely referencing the much loved—at least in my household—The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants). This sort of jostling of the brain with creativity makes me feel like I am more aware of my own ability to create; after all, if some of those odd things can make it to a children’s show then my ideas must not be too insane.

Autumn Conclusions

Still, I love writing, and I love feeling like a writer, which only contradicts when I love feeling like a teacher. So, I guess as we get ready to close out October and push into November, take some time to sit and write if you feel as inspired as I do this time of year. Because, maybe, like me, that will push you to write more during the leaner months when you feel less creative and less likely to pick up the pen.  

If all else fails, check out some DIY autumn crafts from Good Housekeeping.

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The Great Vowel Shift: What is It, and Why Did It Happen?

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The Great Vowel Shift sounds like some sort of cataclysmic event where the world suddenly split open and words spilled out everywhere. As a consequence, now suddenly humans all talk differently. However, that is not really the case at all. In fact, like most things, the shift was a gradual evolution from one era to another and it has a complex history. With that said, in today’s post, we are going to look at the causes and effects of The Great Vowel Shift.

Background of The Great Vowel Shift

In the beginning, vowels were a bit different from what we know them as today. That is to say, there was a difference in pronunciation, from longer and more complex sounds. The shift between the times of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and afterward are indicative of this change.

“The main difference between Chaucer’s language and our own is in the pronunciation of the ‘long’ vowels,” states Harvard University. “The consonants remain generally the same, though Chaucer rolled his r’s, sometimes dropped his aitches, and pronounced both elements of consonant combinations, such as ‘kn,’ that were later simplified.”

In other words, time moved on and through era, so the vowel sound began to change and evolve over time. Vowels started to be pronounced closer to the front of the mouth, which meant as the shift happened some words were pronounced differently. But often, people would pronounce words a specific way based on where they lived. Moreover, there were 8 steps in this change, and, as academia has suggested—this didn’t happen in a quick, orderly way, because evolving language takes time.

Why Did the Shift Happen?

The Great Vowel Shift occurred during the late Middle English period (and before and after, too). It was a “raising of all long vowels,” and there are many explanations given as to why this happened (Nordquist).

For example, because this happened between the 15th and 18th centuries, the shift could be attributed to the movement of people. As stated by some sources: “rapid migration of people from northern England to the southeast part of the country” caused this change as they were looking “to escape the Black Death that killed over 25 million people across Europe” (Omondi).

Moreover, this movement of people blended accents and the words that people use. It also saw the use of a lot more loanwords from France. This either made the English want to change the way their English words sounded in comparison or the two languages naturally blended together.

There are also arguments stating that England’s rich wanted to change the way they spoke so they would sound less like the common serf. In this way, the aristocracy could differentiate itself from the peasant.

Conclusion

The Great Vowel Shift was a massive change in how our words sounds compared to Middle English and transformed speech into what we know today. There are many reasons for this change (as stated), and we can see the shift’s affects even to this day.

Works Cited

“The Great Vowel Shift.” Furman.edu. Web.

“The Great Vowel Shift.” Harvard.edu. Web.

Nordquist, Richard. “What was the great vowel shift?” Thoughtco.com. June 4, 2020. Web.

Omondi, Sharon. “What Was the Great Vowel Shift?” World Atlas. July 18, 2019. Web.

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A Look at the Era of Literary Realism and its Authors

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We have looked at a lot of movements on this blog, but today we look at the era of literary realism. We have even discussed writers from this particular era, so it’s high-time to see what these realistic writers were up during the time of the American Civil War.

The Roots of the Movement

As we see so often from movements, artistic and otherwise, there can be a good deal of push-back from creators who were too young to contribute to the previous movement or just had no interest in creating in a style they didn’t like (the modernists, for example). Similarly, the realism movement exploded at the end of the Romantic period as the writers of this era wanted to depict a less glamorized world.

Thus, the “realism” aspect of the era itself is derived from authors avoiding a romantic view of the world. They wanted to show people living and breathing in a natural environment as honestly as possible.

Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favor of a close observation of outward appearances. As such, realism in its broad sense has comprised many artistic currents in different civilizations.

(Britannica)

If you look closely, it is actually fairly hard to distinguish literary realism from naturalism for the above reasons. However, keep in mind that conveying a real view of the world is essential for these writers, so more honest dialogue and setting were common in the books that appeared in the late 19th century.

Additionally, after the Civil War, the US advanced in numerous ways that included a more literate populace, increased urbanization, and a larger population, and this, “provided a fertile literary environment for readers interested in understanding these rapid shifts in culture,” (Campbell).

Important Authors of Realism

The genre was much defined by the author’s works and their attempts to interpret the world around them. Honore de Balzac, for instance, attempted to give an “encyclopaedic portrait of the whole range of French society …” (Britannica). Meanwhile, the genre did not fully develop until later in the 1860s and 1870s. These authors included Charles Dickens, George Elio, Leo Tolstoy, and William Dean Howells.

Some novels from the realism movement include:

  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Works Cited

Campbell, Donna M. “Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890.” Literary Movements. Washington State University. Sept. 7th, 2015. Web.

“What is Literary Realism? Definition and Examples of the Realism Genre in Literature.” Masterclass. Aug. 15, 2019. Web.

Blog, Literary Bios

Biography of George Bernard Shaw: Socialist, Critic, Playwright

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George Bernard Shaw’s name looms large amongst the litany of famous authors. Both fascinating and contentious, he has all the makings of a literary icon. Likewise, he has many shared traits with other authors. Moreover, his sheer volume of work along, puts him in the pantheon of influential authors. In this George Bernard Shaw biography, we are going to dig into his life, times, and literary works.

Biography of George Bernard Shaw

Upbringing and early novelist

To start, Shaw was born in Dublin on July 26, 1856. He was the third child in his family, and he hated school. However, he found no interest in the workings of academia. Eventually, Shaw worked in an estate agent’s office before moving to London in 1876. There, he struggled to find work through multiple jobs. Eventually, he settled on pursuing a full-time career as a writer—with mixed results.

As stated by Britannica: “Despite his failure as a novelist in the 1880s, Shaw found himself during this decade. He became a vegetarian, a socialist, a spellbinding orator, a polemicist, and tentatively a playwright.” In these words, Shaw became the character and writer that would leave a mark on the literary world.

(Britannica.com)

The Fabian Society and Critic

In 1884, Shaw joined the Fabian Society. The group spent time advancing the principles of democratic socialism. Furthermore, in this society, he used his writing abilities to craft pamphlets and to debate the application of such beliefs. In addition, somewhere in the midst of novel writing failure, Shaw began critiquing plays. These critiques were published in papers in London and became quite successful.  He worked as a critic for the Pall Mall Gazette, The World, The Star, and The Saturday Review.

As Britannica further states, Shaw knew a great deal about the arts, which gave him critical acumen. The source states, “Shaw had a good understanding of music, particularly opera, and he supplemented his knowledge with a brilliance of digression that gives many of his notices a permanent appeal …”

Bernard Shaw as Playwright and Death

Shaw’s first collections of plays appeared in “Plays Unpleasant” and “Plays Pleasant.” Both collections were replete with “what would become Shaw’s signature wit, accompanied by healthy doses of social criticism.” Both of which “stemmed from his Fabian Society leanings” (biography.com). Shaw produced a great deal of work in a variety of genres, which kept him busy working on his craft.

Finally, with the 19th century coming to a close, Shaw really began churning out his best work. He wrote Man and Superman in 1903 and Major Barbara in 1905, and Pygmalion in 1912. In 1925, Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for Saint Joan. He died in his home in England in 1950 at 94 years old.

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Neoclassical Literature Explained: Swift, Pope, and Their Impact

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What is neoclassical literature, and who wrote during this time?

Two big names out of the Neoclassical movement included Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. Yet, there were many more. If you are familiar with the former due to “A Modest Proposal” (1729), then you already have some familiarity. If not, it’s never too late to dig into the satirical elements of the movement.

However, there is much in the movement that it is necessary to explore for a better understanding of literature in general.

What was the neoclassical literature period?

The era in which this period thrived was somewhere between 1660 and 1798. The movement features three important sections, that include the Restoration Period, the Augustan Period, and The Enlightenment Period.

Furthermore, the Neoclassical literature era was marked by an attempt to mimic the Greek and Roman writers of the past. Additionally, writers tried to blend the ideas of enlightenment into the overall writing style of the time. Some sources state that the neoclassical movement in literature was based on these past ideals and skepticism, which took a stern look at societal norms of the time.

With it, came a great deal of satire.

Important Works and Themes

Some works that popped up during this time included The Dunciad by Alexander Pope. He published this anonymously, as it was an unsavory look at his critics. There was also Gulliver’s Travels by Johnathan Swift, which satirized society at large and the inconsistencies in what the norms and mores were espoused.

The neoclassical movement was also the time of wit and cynicism. The writing reached more people, which was great for the down-trodden because education–a factor in reformation–became a reality. As such, themes of social needs and the belief in society, religion, and government were important aspects in published works. As some sources stated, the literature of the time featured “common sense, order, accuracy, and structure,” and showed humanity as “flawed and more human.”