Annus Mirabilis; The Year of Wonders 1666 - An Historical Poem

John Dryden

Sinopse

John Dryden was born on August 9th, 1631 in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire. As a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar. Dryden obtained his BA in 1654, graduating top of the list for Trinity College, Cambridge that year. Returning to London during The Protectorate, Dryden now obtained work with Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden was in the company of the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The setting was to be a sea change in English history. From Republic to Monarchy and from one set of lauded poets to what would soon become the Age of Dryden. The start began later that year when Dryden published the first of his great poems, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death. With the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Dryden celebrated in verse with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. With the re-opening of the theatres after the Puritan ban, Dryden began to also write plays. His first play, The Wild Gallant, appeared in 1663 but was not successful. From 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company, in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and '70s, theatrical writing was his main source of income. In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which described the English defeat of the Dutch naval fleet and the Great Fire of London in 1666. It established him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation, and was crucial in his attaining the posts of Poet Laureate (1668) and then historiographer royal (1670). This was truly the Age of Dryden, he was the foremost English Literary figure in Poetry, Plays, translations and other forms. In 1694 he began work on what would be his most ambitious and defining work as translator, The Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by subscription. It was a national event. John Dryden died on May 12th, 1700, and was initially buried in St. Anne's cemetery in Soho, before being exhumed and reburied in Westminster Abbey ten days later.

Disponível desde: 01/12/2016.

Poesia e Teatro

Outros livros que poderiam interessá-lo

Peer Gynt - Full Text and...

Henrik Ibsen

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding.
Peer Gynt, Ibsen's mighty epic, is by turns fantastic and tragic.
Despite Peer's quest for absolute purity he repeatedly falls for the fleshy temptations of compromise, as he swaggers and seduces his way from the fjords of Norway to the deserts of Africa and back.
Translated and introduced by Kenneth McLeish.

Ver livro

Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a world of violence and generational conflict in which two young people fall in love and die because of that love. The story is rather extraordinary in that the normal problems faced by young lovers are here so very large. It is not simply that the families of Romeo and Juliet disapprove of the lover's affection for each other; rather, the Montagues and the Capulets are on opposite sides in a blood feud and are trying to kill each other on the streets of Verona. Every time a member of one of the two families dies in the fight, his relatives demand the blood of his killer. Because of the feud, if Romeo is discovered with Juliet by her family, he will be killed. Once Romeo is banished, the only way that Juliet can avoid being married to someone else is to take a potion that apparently kills her, so that she is burried with the bodies of her slain relatives. In this violent, death-filled world, the movement of the story from love at first sight to the union of the lovers in death seems almost inevitable.

Ver livro

Short Poetry Collection 023

Various Various

Librivox’s Short Poetry Collection 023: a collection of 20 public-domain poems.

Ver livro

The Rain Drinkers

G. Finan

“That is what you get, my friend. That… is what you get." 
Set in Long Island, NY, in the little town of Bay Shore at the beginning of the twentieth century, “The Rain Drinkers” is the story of a young man’s passage to adulthood. 
Sent to stay with an abusive relative he has never met and the man’s unfortunate young wife, the younger man is forced to learn lessons of life, friendship, love, and loss. 
The story touches on many topics, such as racism, immigration, and the American experience at the beginning of a new age.

Ver livro

The Emma Press Anthology of Aunts

Rachel Piercey

At one remove from parental authority, aunts play a crucial role in the upbringing of children across the world. This anthology puts these women in the spotlight and explores what it means to be – and feels like to have – an aunt, historically and today. Some aunts are biological, some are chosen, but all have an impact on the way we learn to move through the world. Poets in this volume tell stories of glamorous confidants, akin to older siblings, and of older women, tough and worldly-wise, who offer their nieces and nephews a different perspective on life. Above all, the book restores their centrality to young people's development and to family life.

Ver livro

Miss Julie (NHB Classic Plays)

August Strindberg

Midsummer's Eve, Sweden. A night when the sun doesn't set. A night of drinking and dancing. A night to break the rules.
When Julie finds herself alone on her father's estate, she throws caution to the wind and gate-crashes the servants' party. In the sultry heat of that long, light night, she finds herself in a dangerous tryst with her father's manservant, Jean. What begins as a flirtatious game, as the two vie for power, slowly descends into a savage fight for survival.
August Strindberg's Miss Julie was written at a time of industrial and social unrest, a ground-breaking masterpiece that still provokes and shocks audiences today. Award-winning playwright Howard Brenton brings Strindberg's genius to life in this brilliant adaptation premiered at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, in July 2017.
'riveting... as real and sensational now as ever and as socially and politically pertinent'- Guardian

Ver livro