Wise Poets

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Quintessential American Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet who was deeply entrenched in both the fabric of the American spirit and American history, He was born in Portland, Maine on February 27, 1807 which was still a part of Massachusetts and was a direct descendant of the Pilgrims that settled … Read more

Virginia Woolf: A Woman on the Cutting Edge of Free Virginia Woolf was born on January 25, 1882 in South Kensington, London the seventh a large upper middle class blended family of eight children, and her father, Leslie Stephen, was a prosperous editor and publisher and a great man of letters, Virginia, however, was home … Read more

David the Hebrew Song Master and the Elements of Hebrew Poetry David, son of Jesse, was many things: he was a shepherd boy, a singer/song writer, a warrior, a king, a murderer, and finally he was a man after God’s own heart. David started his life as the youngest and least of 8 brothers, and … Read more

Author Charles Dickens: The Conscience of His Age With debtors and the poor being remanded to rat infested prisons in 1812 when Charles Dickens was born, the Victorian age was a brutal time to be poor. And young Dickens himself experienced some of this brutality first hand as a child when his middle class family … Read more

The Native American Poets Part One: Lore of the Ancestors America’s indigenous people from Alaska to South America were deeply connected to the animals and the land and would sit around the evening campfires at night to weave their myths and folklore in song, chants, and dance in the oral tradition, as other ancient peoples, … Read more

Robert Frost: America’s Beloved Farmer Poet Robert Frost was America’s most beloved poet because he wrote about us the ordinary people, in ordinary English language, performing the ordinary tasks of life in poems such as neighbors “Mending Walls,” sleeping “After Apple Picking,” and the everyday choices people make in “The Road Not Taken”. In essence, … Read more

The Greek Greats: Plato the Athenian Schoolmaster While the poets, actors and playwrights of Greece gave us compelling stories and great heroes, the Greek philosophers gave us teachings about the deeper things of life, and Plato is credited with being the most important teacher of Greece. But to understand Plato we must understand the definition … Read more

The Greek Greats: The Rise of Drama and the Thespian Arts In the history of Greece, drama began as a group effort with the choruses as group of about 50 actors who sang, danced and spoke in unison about the story line and the message of a play. These plays had their roots in ancient … Read more

The Greek Greats: Homer the Epic Poet Homer was the legendary poet of 8th century BC ancient Greece who was ascribed authorship of the two epic Greek poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, However, scholars debate whether or not Homer was a real historical figure or if these poems evolved over time as the Homeric … Read more

Greek Literature: Intro to the Three Ages Greece was the philosophical, cultural and literature epicenter of the ancient Occidental world and laid the foundations of Western thought, logic and government. And Greek literature and language spread though out of the “known world during the reign of Alexander the Great over Greece and Macedonia. There were … Read more

Maya Angelou: The Voice of the Underdog Born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St. Lewis. Missouri Maya Angelou was not just a prolific, impressive writer but a remarkable human being who used her talents yo fight for the rights of oppressed people and being a voice for woman, children and minorities everywhere … Read more

Sylvia Plath: A Study in Terminal Hopelessness No wonder she was suicidal. On October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts Sylvia Plath was a born into a dark family situation in which her immigrant father was a former Nazi, the very definition of death and darkness, and Plath tasted the harsh sting of abandonment when her … Read more

This is the last in my three part series on Shakespeare, but perhaps it should have been my first since Shakespeare started his expansive writing career as a poet before he became a playwright. And in the year of 1593 he published his first long narrative poem of 199 stanzas “Venus and Adonis” a poem … Read more

William Shakespeare Part II: His Plays William Shakespeare was part owner of the world renown Globe Theater in London and the blockbuster actor and playwright of England’s Elizabethan era. And his language was so beautiful, and he had such an adept command of the English language that he went down in history as a great … Read more

Henry David Thoreau: Nature’s Friend Henry David Thoreau was born July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts where he spent most of his life and was educated at Harvard University. But he was no lover of town life and the mundane, more trivial things pertaining to man. He was a very deeply spiritual person who had … Read more