Briefs (Quotations from noted writers)

He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.[1]

Scorn at first, makes after-love the more.[2]

Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed.[3]

– Shakespeare[4]

A sculptor wields the chisel, and the stricken marble grows to beauty. 

– W. C. Bryant[5]

May I govern my passions with absolute sway, And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away…by a gentle decay. 

– Dr. W. Pope[6]

Self-defense is a virtue, sole bulwark of all right. 

None are so desolate but something dear, dearer than self, possesses or posses’d a thought, and claims the homage of a tear.

– Byron[7]

Night, night it is, night upon the palms, Night, night it is, the land wind has blown. Starry, starry night, over deep and height; Love, love in the valley, love all alone. 

– R. L. Stevenson[8]

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[1] Romeo, to himself, below Juliet’s balcony, in Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2

[2] Valentine, to the Duke, in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III, Scene 1

[3] Macbeth to his Lady, in Macbeth, Act III, Scene 2, responding to her query “What’s to be done?”

[4] William Shakespeare was born in 1564, in Stratford, England to John and Mary Arden Shakespeare. His father was a glove-maker. He no doubt attended the local grammar school, and would have studied primarily Latin rhetoric, logic, and literature. He probably left school at 15, which was the norm, and took some sort of job. Numerous references in his plays suggest he had special insight to his father’s trade, so he may have worked for him. At age 18 he married Anne Hathaway, a local farmer’s daughter eight years his senior. Their first daughter (Susanna) was born six months later (1583), and twins Judith and Hamnet were born in 1585.

Shakespeare’s life can be divided into three periods: the first 20 years in Stratford, which include his schooling, early marriage, and fatherhood; the next 25 years as an actor and playwright in London; and the last five in retirement back in Stratford where he enjoyed moderate wealth gained from his theatrical successes. 

The years linking the first two periods are marked by a lack of information about Shakespeare, and are often referred to as the “dark years”; the transition from active work into retirement was gradual and cannot be precisely dated. At some point during the dark years, Shakespeare began his career with a London theatrical company—perhaps in 1589, for he was already an actor and playwright of some note in 1592. Shakespeare apparently wrote and acted for Pembroke’s Men, as well as numerous others, in particular Strange’s Men, which later became the Chamberlain’s Men, with whom he remained for the rest of his career.

In 1592 the Plague closed the theaters for about two years. Shakespeare turned to writing book-length narrative poetry. Most notable were Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. During this same period, Shakespeare was writing his sonnets, which are more likely signs of the time’s fashion rather than actual love poems detailing any particular relationship. He returned to play writing when theaters reopened in 1594, and published no more poetry. His sonnets were published without his consent in 1609, shortly before his retirement.

In 1596 Shakespeare suffered the loss of his only son, Hamnet, who died at the age of 11. But his career continued unabated, and in London in 1599, he became one of the partners in the new Globe Theater built by the Chamberlain’s Men. When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and was succeeded by her cousin King James of Scotland, the Chamberlain’s Men was renamed the King’s Men, and Shakespeare’s productivity and popularity continued uninterrupted. He invested in London real estate and, one year away from retirement, purchased a second theater, the Blackfriars Gatehouse, in partnership with his fellow actors. His final play was the above-cited Henry VIII, two years before his death. William Shakespeare died in 1616, and was buried two days later in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church where he had been baptized 52 years earlier.  (Source: enotes.com)

[5] William Cullen Bryant was born in 1794 in a log cabin near Cummington, Massachusetts, the second son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later state legislator, and Sarah Snell Bryant. His family moved to a new home—now a museum—when he was two years old. He developed an interest in poetry early in life. Under his father’s tutelage, and with his father’s large library at his disposal, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets. He published his first poem at the age of 10. At 16, his father helped him publish his first book, The Embargo, a political satire targeting the trade policies of President Thomas Jefferson. The first edition quickly sold out—partly because of the publicity earned by the poet’s young age—and a second, expanded edition, which included Bryant’s translation of Classical verse, was printed.

Bryant wrote little poetry while preparing to enter Williams College as a sophomore, but upon leaving Williams after a single year and then beginning to read law, he regenerated his passion for poetry through encounter with the English pre-Romantics and, particularly, William Wordsworth (see footnote 46). He studied law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts, and was admitted to the bar in 1815. He then began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington every day.

Thanatopsis, Bryant’s most famous poem, came to light in an unusual way. His father took some pages of verse from his son’s desk and submitted them, along with his own work, to the North American Review in 1817. Someone at the magazine joined two of the son’s discrete fragments, gave the result the Greek-derived title Thanatopsis (meditation on death), mistakenly attributed it to Bryant’s father, and published it. For all the errors, the poem was well-received, and soon Bryant was publishing poems with some regularity. In January of 1821, Bryant married Frances Fairchild. Later that year, he published Poems, in which he added sets of lines at the beginning and end of Thanatopsis. His career as a poet was launched.

In 1825 Bryant stopped practicing law, tired of the foibles and absurdities he perceived in the profession. With the help of a distinguished and well-connected literary family, the Sedgwicks, he gained a foothold in New York City, where, in 1825, he was hired as editor, first of the New-York Review, then of the United States Review and Literary Gazette. After two years of fatiguing effort to breathe life into periodicals, he became Assistant Editor of the New-York Evening Post, a newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton. Within two years, he was Editor-in-Chief and a part owner.

In 1832 Bryant published an expanded version of Poems. Its positive reception in the U. S. and in Britain made him as America’s leading poet. But journalism was now his forte. He remained the Editor-in-Chief of the Evening Post for half a century. It became the foundation of his fortune and the means of his political power in his city, state, and nation. For example, in 1860, he was one of the prime Eastern exponents of Abraham Lincoln. In his last decade, Bryant shifted from writing his own poetry to translating Homer. He assiduously worked on the Iliad and The Odyssey from 1871 to 1874. He is also remembered as one of the principal authorities on homeopathy and as a hymnist for the Unitarian Church—both legacies of his father’s influence. He died in 1878 after an accidental fall at Central Park. (Source: Wikipedia)

[6] Walter Pope was an English astronomer and poet. He was born in about 1627 in Northamptonshire. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, with a BA in 1649, MA in 1651. Until the Restoration, he worked in Wadham College. In 1660, he became the professor of astronomy at Gresham College in London, taking over from Sir Christopher Wren. He was also appointed dean of Wadham college. He became one of the earliest members of the Royal Society, and was made the registrar of the diocese of Chester. During the 1660s he was active in the Royal Society, with letters published in Philosophical Transactions in 1665 and 1666. He traveled to Europe and reported for the Royal Society from Italy. In 1686, Pope developed a severe eye infection; he resigned his teaching post the next year. In 1693, his collection of books burned. He published collections of poetry and translations in 1698. Pope died in 1714 and left his money and belongings to a woman named Anne Shargold, who had cared for him in his illness. He was buried in St. Giles, Cripplegate. (Source: Wikipedia)

[7] George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron, was born in 1788 in London. His beginnings were not auspicious. His father abandoned the family before his birth, fleeing to Europe to avoid debt collectors after having squandered his wife’s fortune. George was born with a club foot, which often caused him physical and emotional pain. His mother, Catherine Gordon, took him to Aberdeen, Scotland, where they lived in lodgings on a meager income. His nurse began molesting him when he was nine. 

At the age of 10, the life of this grammar school boy changed forever when he inherited the title and estates of his great-uncle, the “wicked” Lord Byron. His mother proudly took him to England. He fell in love with the ghostly halls and spacious grounds of Newstead Abbey, which had been presented to the Byron family by Henry VIII; and he and his mother lived in its ruins for a while. Then John Hanson, Mrs. Byron’s attorney, rescued the boy from the pernicious influence of his nurse, the tortures of a quack doctor, and the increasingly uneven temper of his mother. He took him to London and sent him to a school in Dulwich.

In 1801 Byron went to Harrow, where his friendships with younger boys fostered a romantic attachment to the school.  It is possible that these friendships gave the first impetus to his sexual ambivalence, which became more pronounced at Cambridge and later in Greece.  He spent the summer of 1803 with his mother at Southwell, near Nottingham, but soon escaped to Newstead and stayed with his tenant, Lord Grey, and courted his distant cousin Mary Chaworth.  When she grew tired of “that lame boy,” he indulged his grief by writing melancholy poetry and Mary became the symbol of idealized and unattainable love. 

After a term at Trinity College, Byron indulged in dissipation and undue generosity in London that put him deeply into debt. He returned in the summer of 1806 to Southwell, where he gathered his early poems in a volume privately printed in November with the title Fugitive Pieces. The following June his first published poems, Hours of Idleness, appeared; it and he received poor review from the critics. In early 1808, he entered into “an abyss of sensuality” in London that threatened to undermine his health.  On reaching his majority in 1809, he took his seat in the House of Lords. He also published a popular anonymous satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which he struck back at critics.

Byron next wanted to make a grand tour of Europe, in the tradition of young English gentlemen of the time, but most of the continent was embroiled in war. So he, accompanied by his friend John Hobhouse, he toured the Mediterrean. He fell in love with several women as they proceeded from Gibraltar to Malta. He also fell in love with Greece, in part for its moral acceptance of his sexual proclivities. And, importantly, he began an autobiographical poem, Childe Harold. 

Byron returned to London too late to see his mother before she died. In early 1812, he made his first speech in the House of Lords. The next month, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was published and took the town by storm. The handsome poet with the clubfoot swept into affairs with the passionate Lady Caroline Lamb, the “autumnal” Lady Oxford, Lady Frances Webster, and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Agitated by alternating guilt and exultation, Byron sought escape. In 1815 he married Annabella Milbanke; they settled in London. Byron mistreated his new wife. After she bore him a daughter (he was displeased, having wanted a son) Annabella left with the child to visit to her parents and never returned. She was too modest to publicly explain her departure. Rumors began to fly, most of them about Byron’s relations with his half-sister. Byron signed the separation papers and went abroad with Hobhouse, never returning to England.

Byron journeyed to Switzerland and stayed near the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his entourage, which included his wife, Mary (who famously composed Frankenstein that summer); her father, William Godwin; and his stepdaughter, Claire Clairmont. The latter had begun an affair with Byron before he left England. Byron continued to write, completing Canto III of Childe Harold. At the end of the summer the Shelley party left for England, Claire carrying Byron’s illegitimate daughter. Byron went to Italy, moving from place to place, writing and romancing women. In 1818 he completed the first canto of Don Juan, a picaresque verse satire, with pointed references to his own experiences. Later that year, Claire sent his illegitimate daughter Allegra to Italy for him to raise.

The sale of Newstead Abbey finally cleared most of Byron’s debts and left him with a small income which supported him in Italy. In 1819 he met the 19 year old Countess Teresa Guicciolo, who left her husband for him. He enjoyed a couple of years of happiness with her, publishing frequently and becoming a member of the secret revolutionary society of the Carbonari, to which Teresa’s father belonged. He sent Allegra to be educated at a convent in Ravenna; she died there the following year. 

Byron and Teresa moved to Leghorn, where he worked with Shelley and Leigh Hunt on a new periodical magazine. But Shelley tragically drowned, and Byron eventually grew restless of domesticity. He longed for the opportunity for some noble action that would vindicate him in the eyes of his countrymen. The London Greek Committee contacted him in spring of 1823 to help the Greeks in a war for independence from the Turks, and Byron immediately accepted. He threw his money and soul into the effort, and left for Greece. But in early 1824 he fell ill and died without seeing battle. (Source: englishhistory.net)

[8]Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850. He was the son of Thomas Stevenson, a leading lighthouse engineer, and Margaret Isabella Balfour. He inherited from his mother a “weak chest” and a tendency to coughs and fevers. Illness would be a recurrent feature of his adult life, and left him extraordinarily thin. His frequent illnesses often kept him away from his first school, and he was taught for long stretches by private tutors. Throughout his childhood he was compulsively writing stories. His father was proud of this interest; he paid for the printing of Robert’s first publication at sixteen, an account of the covenanters’ rebellion, published on its two hundredth anniversary.

In 1867 he entered the University of Edinburgh to study engineering, but did not like it. In 1871, he announced to his father his decision to pursue a life of letters. His father was disappointed, but accepting.  He felt that to provide some security, Stevenson should study law and be called to the Scottish bar; Stevenson agreed. But he was moving away from his upbringing. His dress became more Bohemian: he already wore his hair long, but now took to wearing a velveteen jacket. Most distressingly, he had come to reject Christianity. In 1873, his father found that Stevenson had joined a club which advocated disregarding parents’ teachings. This led to a long period of dissension with both parents.

The next four years were spent writing, and in travel in search of a climate that would be more beneficial for his health. He made long and frequent trips to France. During this period he made most of his lasting friendships and met his future wife, Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, an American who was 10 years his senior and married at the time. The two met again early in 1877 and became lovers. Stevenson spent much of the following years with her and her children in France. The next year, Fanny returned to her home in San Francisco, California. Stevenson set off to join her the next year, against the advice of his friends and without notifying his parents. The trip broke his health, and he was near death when he arrived in Monterey. He was nursed back to health by some ranchers there. By late 1879 he had recovered enough to continue to San Francisco, where he struggled to support himself through his writing, but by the end of the winter his health was broken again, and he found himself at death’s door. Vandegrift—now divorced and recovered from her own illness—came to Stevenson’s bedside and nursed him to recovery.

In May, 1880, Stevenson married Fanny. At the end of summer, he took his new family (including stepson Lloyd) back to Britain, and was warmly welcomed by his parents. Fanny helped patch up differences between father and son through her charm and wit. Between 1880 and 1887 Stevenson searched in vain for a home suitable to his state of health. He spent his summers at various places in Scotland and England and winters in France. In spite of his ill health he produced the bulk of his best known work: Treasure Island, his first widely popular book; Kidnapped; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and two volumes of verse, A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods.

On the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson felt free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. He went to America, and the following summer, chartered the yacht Casco and set sail with his family from San Francisco. The salt sea air and thrill of adventure for a time restored his health; and for nearly three years he wandered the eastern and central Pacific, visiting important island groups. Then he purchased four hundred acres of land in Upolu, one of the Samoan islands. He worked hard to set up a home, which he named Vailima (“Five Rivers”). In addition to building his house and clearing his land and helping the natives in many ways, he found time to work at his writing. In 1894, he died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage; he is buried on Upolu.  (Source: Wikipedia)