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  Ode on St Cecilia's Day - Pope...

  Alexander Pope

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  Alexander Pope was born on May 21st, 1688 in London into a Catholic family.   
  His education was affected by the recent Test Acts, upholding the status of the Church of England and banning Catholics from teaching.  In effect this meant his formal education was over by the age of 12 and Pope was to now immerse himself in classical literature and languages and to, in effect, educate himself.    
  From this age too he also suffered from numerous health problems including a type of tuberculosis (Pott’s disease) which resulted in a stunted, deformed body.  Only to grow to a height of 4’ 6”, with a severe hunchback and complicated further by respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes and abdominal pain all of which served to further isolate him, initially, from society.  
  However his talent was evident to all. Best known for his satirical verse, his translations of Homer and the use of the heroic couplet, he is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare.  
  With the publication of Pastorals in 1709 followed by An Essay on Criticism (1711) and his most famous work The Rape of the Lock (1712; revised and enlarged in 1714) Pope became not only famous but wealthy.  
  His translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey further enhanced both reputation and purse.  His engagement to produce an opulent new edition of Shakespeare met with a mixed reception.  Pope attempted to "regularise" Shakespeare's metre and rewrote some of his verse and cut 1500 lines, that Pope considered to be beneath the Bard’s standard, to mere footnotes.  
  Alexander Pope died on May 30th, 1744 at his villa at Twickenham (where he created his famous grotto and gardens) and was buried in the nave of the nearby Church of England Church of St Mary the Virgin.   
  Over the years and centuries since his death Pope’s work has been in and out of favour but with this distance he is now truly recognised as one of England’s greatest poets.

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  Mike Bartlett Plays: Two (NHB...

  Mike Bartlett

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  Five ambitious and exciting plays by the multi-award-winning playwright, hailed as 'one of the prime movers in a new golden generation of British playwrights' (Independent), and introduced by the author.
  Earthquakes in London (National Theatre & Headlong, 2010) is an epic drama about climate change, population explosion, social breakdown and worldwide paranoia, travelling from 1968 to 2525 and back again. 'The theatrical equivalent of a thrilling roller-coaster ride' (Daily Telegraph)
  Love, Love, Love (Paines Plough & Drum Theatre Plymouth, UK tour, 2010; Royal Court & Paines Plough, 2012) examines the baby boomer generation, from coming-of-age in the 1960s to retirement-age more than forty years later, in a play that 'does the clash of generational world views with a devastating precision' (Guardian).
  The Enemy is a short play in which a journalist seizes an opportunity to interview the man who shot Osama bin Laden. It was staged by Headlong as part of Decade (St Katherine's Dock, London, 2011), exploring 9/11 and its legacy.
  13 (National Theatre, 2011) is a panoramic drama in which a young man returns to London, a city riven by social protest and upheaval, with a radical vision for the future. Premiered on the National's largest stage, it confirmed Bartlett's ability to tackle epic themes with supreme assurance: 'His ambition is distinctive and immense' (Evening Standard).
  Medea (Headlong, UK tour, 2012) is a startlingly modern version of Euripides' tragedy, exploring a woman's private fury at her husband's infidelity, while imprisoned in her marital home. 'A savage play for today, superbly well done' (Mail on Sunday)

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  New and Selected Poems

  Cliff Yates

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  Cliff Yates's New & Selected Poems brings together over thirty years of inimitable work, from his Fenton-Aldeburgh Prize debut, Henry's Clock, to his most recent pamphlet, Another Last Word and beyond. His poems are moving, surprising and funny, sometimes in the space of a few lines, and, gathered together wonderfully here, add up to an oblique but compelling document of lives and times.

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  Dreaming and Drowning

  Kwame Owusu

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  'The supernatural is possible and the impossible is natural and life teeters on the edge of the unreal'
  Malachi's been looking forward to a fresh start at uni for months. He's settling in, he's got a stack of books to read and he's met someone new – Kojo, a musician with a megawatt smile, who's basically perfect.
  But something doesn't feel right. He keeps having the same nightmare – sinking, crushed by the weight of the ocean – and it's getting worse… A beast grows in the water, hungry, relentless, hunting him but always just out of sight. As the boundaries between nightmare and reality fracture, Malachi must fight harder than ever to stay afloat.
  Kwame Owusu's play Dreaming and Drowning is an intimate and visceral deep-dive into the boundless mind of a young Black queer man wrestling with anxiety.
  It won the Mustapha Matura Award, was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award, and was one of the winning plays in the RSC's 37 Plays competition. It was first performed at the Bush Theatre, London, in November 2023, directed by the playwright, performed by Tienne Simon, and produced by WoLab.

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  Rhyme A Dozen A - 12 Poets 12...

  Stephen Crane, Edna St Vincent...

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  ‘A dime a dozen’ as known in America, is perhaps equal to the English ‘cheap as chips’ but whatever the lingua franca of your choice in this series we hereby submit ‘A Rhyme a Dozen’ as 12 poems on many given subjects that are a well-rounded gathering, maybe even an essential guide, from the knowing pens of classic poets and their beautifully spoken verse to the comfort of your ears. 
   
  1 - 01 - A Rhyme A Dozen - 12 Poems, 12 Poets, 1 Topic - Geographical Features - An Introduction 
  2 - On the Desert by Stephen Crane 
  3 - Mist In The Valley by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  4 - The Lake Isle of Inisfree by William Butler Yeats 
  5 - The River and Its Waves Are One by Kabir 
  6 - The Awakening River by Katherine Mansfield 
  7 - In the Forest by Sarojini Naidu 
  8 - Woods in Winter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
  9 - The Waterfall by Henry Vaughan 
  10 - Aurora Borealis by Herman Melville 
  11 - The Cloud on the Mountain by Alama Iqbal 
  12 - Alone Looking at the Mountain by Li Po 
  13 - How the Old Mountains Drip with Sunset by Emily Dickinson

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  The Narrative Poetry - Listen to...

  William Shakespeare

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  Despite William Shakespeare being regarded as the most significant figure in the Western literary canon, relatively little is known about his early life and his later ‘lost years’.  Even the exact date of his birth is uncertain. 23rd April generally accepted to be the date of his birth, could be a scholarly mistake amplified by the coincidence of it also being the date of his death.  
   
  What is known for certain is that Shakespeare was born to middle class, but probably illiterate parents, John and Mary, in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1565 and baptised there on the 26th April.  He was the third of eight children and the first and eldest surviving son of the remaining five.  
   
  It’s assumed he attended, King’s New School the nearby grammar school, but no records from the time still exist.  However, information on the standardised curriculum that did exist, introduced the young Shakespeare to the disciplines of mathematics, Greek, law, classical history and Latin which greatly influenced his writing. 
   
  At 18, in some haste, he married Anne Hathaway, his senior by 8 years and pregnant with their first child Susanna who was to be followed by the twins, Hamnet and Judith.   Little else is known until in 1590 Shakespeare probably comes to London as by 1592 he becomes relatively well known – first as an actor and then, of course, as a playwright despite some early criticism for having a writing style of his better educated contemporaries and not of his own lower status.  
   
  His iconic status now spans global literature and stems directly from the magnitude of his plays, both tragedies and comedies, and his poetry which is often cited as some of the greatest love poetry ever written.  His legacy endures despite the passing of centuries. 
   
  William Shakespeare died at Stratford-upon-Avon on the April 23rd, 1616.  He was 52. 
   
  01 - The Narrative Poetry of William Shakespeare - An Introduction 
  02 - Venus and Adonis - Part 1 by William Shakespeare 
  03 - Venus and Adonis - Part 2 by William Shakespeare 
  04 - A Lovers Complaint by William Shakespeare

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