Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism

By definition, postcolonialism is a period of time after colonialism, and postcolonial literature is typically characterized by its opposition to the colonial. However, some critics have argued that any literature that expresses an opposition to colonialism, even if it is produced during a colonial period, may be defined as postcolonial, primarily due to its oppositional nature. Postcolonial literature often focuses on race relations and the effects of racism and usually indicts white and/or colonial societies. Despite a basic consensus on the general themes of postcolonial writing, however, there is ongoing debate regarding the meaning of postcolonialism. Many critics now propose that the term should be expanded to include the literatures of Canada, the United States, and Australia. In his essay discussing the nature and boundaries of postcolonialism, Simon During argues for a more inclusive definition, calling it “the need, in nations, or groups which have been victims of imperialism to achieve an identity uncontaminated by universalist or Eurocentric concepts or images.” The scale and scope of modern European imperialism, as well as its extraordinarily organized character, including the cultural licensing of racial domination, has sometimes led to the perception of colonization as a modern phenomenon. In fact, many critics propose that modern colonialism was not a discrete occurrence and that an examination of premodern colonial activities will allow for a greater and more complex understanding of modern structures of power and domination, serving to illuminate the operation of older histories in the context of both modern colonialism and contemporary race and global political relations.

Works of literature that are defined as postcolonial often record racism or a history of genocide, including slavery, apartheid, and the mass extinction of peoples, such as the Aborigines in Australia. Critical response to these texts is often seen as an important way to articulate and negotiate communication between writers who define themselves as postcolonial and critics who are not part of that experience. In her introduction to Post-Colonial and African American Women's Writing, published in 2000, Gina Wisker notes that the indictment present in many postcolonial texts tends to produce guilt or feelings of inherited complicity in many readers. Also, although writing about these texts may raise the level of awareness of both the texts and their writers, some postcolonial writers see reflected in this activity an arrogant assumption about the need for noncolonial cultures to recognize postcolonial writers. Similarly, other critics have noted that critical response that focuses entirely on the essential nature of black or Asian writers may also serve to marginalize their writing by supposing their experiences as largely a product of being “other” than European.

Postcolonialism includes a vast array of writers and subjects. In fact, the very different geographical, historical, social, religious, and economic concerns of the different ex-colonies dictate a wide variety in the nature and subject of most postcolonial writing. Wisker has noted in her book that it is even simplistic to theorize that all postcolonial writing is resistance writing. In fact, many postcolonial writers themselves will argue that their countries are still very much colonial countries, both in terms of their values and behaviors, and that these issues are reflected in their work. In her essay on postcolonialism, Deepika Bahri agrees, noting that while the definition of postcolonialism may be fairly boundaried, the actual use of the term is very subjective, allowing for a yoking together of a very diverse range of experiences, cultures, and problems. This diversity of definitions exists, notes Bahri, because the term postcolonialism is used both as a literal description of formerly colonial societies and as a description of global conditions after a period of colonialism. In this regard, according to Bahri, the notion of the “postcolonial” as a literary genre and an academic construct may have meanings that are completely separate from a historical moment or time period.

Some women colonial writers draw a relationship between postcolonialism and feminism. For many of these writers, who live in strong patriarchal cultures, language and the ability to write and communicate represent power. Some of these writers, for example, have noted that since the language of British-ruled colonies is English, literature written in English has often been used to marginalize and constrain female points of view. In the postcolonial period, however, language, and the ability to speak, write, and publish, has become an enabling tool for postcolonial authors

Directive by Robert Frost

Directive by Robert Frost

Back out of all this now too much for us,

Back in a time made simple by the loss

Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off

Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,

There is a house that is no more a house

Upon a farm that is no more a farm

And in a town that is no more a town.

The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you

Who only has at heart your getting lost,

May seem as if it should have been a quarry—

Great monolithic knees the former town

Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.

And there’s a story in a book about it:

Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels

The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest,

The chisel work of an enormous Glacier

That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.

You must not mind a certain coolness from him

Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.

Nor need you mind the serial ordeal

Of being watched from forty cellar holes

As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.

As for the woods’ excitement over you

That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,

Charge that to upstart inexperience.

Where were they all not twenty years ago?

They think too much of having shaded out

A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.

Make yourself up a cheering song of how

Someone’s road home from work this once was,

Who may be just ahead of you on foot

Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.

The height of the adventure is the height

Of country where two village cultures faded

Into each other. Both of them are lost.

And if you’re lost enough to find yourself

By now, pull in your ladder road behind you

And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.

Then make yourself at home. The only field

Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall.

First there’s the children’s house of make-believe,

Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,

The playthings in the playhouse of the children.

Weep for what little things could make them glad.

Then for the house that is no more a house,

But only a belilaced cellar hole,

Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.

This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.

Your destination and your destiny’s

A brook that was the water of the house,

Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,

Too lofty and original to rage.

(We know the valley streams that when aroused

Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)

I have kept hidden in the instep arch

Of an old cedar at the waterside

A broken drinking goblet like the Grail

Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it,

So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t.

(I stole the goblet from the children’s playhouse.)

Here are your waters and your watering place.

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS Albert Camus

THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

Albert Camus

Summary

The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose.

The absurd is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, and any attempt to reconcile this contradiction is simply an attempt to escape from it: facing the absurd is struggling against it. Camus claims that existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Chestov, and Jaspers, and phenomenologists such as Husserl, all confront the contradiction of the absurd but then try to escape from it. Existentialists find no meaning or order in existence and then attempt to find some sort of transcendence or meaning in this very meaninglessness.

Living with the absurd, Camus suggests, is a matter of facing this fundamental contradiction and maintaining constant awareness of it. Facing the absurd does not entail suicide, but, on the contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest.

Camus identifies three characteristics of the absurd life: revolt (we must not accept any answer or reconciliation in our struggle), freedom (we are absolutely free to think and behave as we choose), and passion (we must pursue a life of rich and diverse experiences).

Camus gives four examples of the absurd life: the seducer, who pursues the passions of the moment; the actor, who compresses the passions of hundreds of lives into a stage career; the conqueror, or rebel, whose political struggle focuses his energies; and the artist, who creates entire worlds. Absurd art does not try to explain experience, but simply describes it. It presents a certain worldview that deals with particular matters rather than aiming for universal themes.

The book ends with a discussion of the myth of Sisyphus, who, according to the Greek myth, was punished for all eternity to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down to the bottom when he reaches the top. Camus claims that Sisyphus is the ideal absurd hero and that his punishment is representative of the human condition: Sisyphus must struggle perpetually and without hope of success. So long as he accepts that there is nothing more to life than this absurd struggle, then he can find happiness in it, says Camus.

Camus appends his essay with a discussion of the works of Franz Kafka. He ultimately concludes that Kafka is an existentialist, who, like Kierkegaard, chooses to make a leap of faith rather than accept his absurd condition. However, Camus admires Kafka for expressing humanity's absurd predicament so perfectly.

Marlovian Shakespeare Authorship Theory

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is arguably the most famous writer of the English language, known for both his plays and sonnets. Though much about his life remains open to debate due to incomplete evidence, the following biography consolidates the most widely-accepted facts of Shakespeare's life and career.

In the mid-sixteenth century, William Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, moved to the idyllic town of Stratford-upon-Avon. There, he became a successful landowner, moneylender, glove-maker, and dealer of wool and agricultural goods. In 1557, he married Mary Arden.

During John Shakespeare's time, the British middle class was expanding in both size and wealth, allowing its members more freedoms and luxuries, as well as a stronger collective voice in local government. John took advantage of the changing times and became a member of the Stratford Council in 1557, which marked the beginning of his illustrious political career. By 1561, he was elected as one of the town's fourteen burgesses, and subsequently served as Constable, then Chamberlain, and later, Alderman. In all of these positions, the elder Shakespeare administered borough property and revenues. In 1567, he became bailiff - the highest elected office in Stratford and the equivalent of a modern-day mayor.

Town records indicate that William Shakespeare was John and Mary's third child. His birth is unregistered, but legend pins the date as April 23, 1564, possibly because it is known that he died on the same date 52 years later. In any event, William's baptism was registered with the town of Stratford on April 26, 1564. Little is known about his childhood, although it is generally assumed that he attended the local grammar school, the King's New School. The school was staffed by Oxford-educated faculty who taught the students mathematics, natural sciences, logic, Christian ethics, and classical languages and literature.

Shakespeare did not attend university, which was not unusual for the time. University education was reserved for wealthy sons of the elite, and even then, mostly just those who wanted to become clergymen. The numerous classical and literary references in Shakespeare’s plays are a testament, however, to the excellent education he received in grammar school, and speaks to his ability as an autodidact. His early plays in particular draw on the works of Seneca and Plautus. Even more impressive than Shakespeare's formal education is the wealth of general knowledge he exhibits in his work. His vocabulary exceeds that of any other English writer of his time by a wide margin.

In 1582, at the age of eighteen, William Shakespeare married twenty-six-year-old Anne Hathaway. Their first daughter, Susanna, was not baptized until six months after her birth - a fact that has given rise to speculation over the circumstances surrounding the marriage. In 1585, Anne bore twins, baptized Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare. Hamnet died at the age of eleven, by which time William Shakespeare was already a successful playwright. Around 1589, Shakespeare wrote Henry VI, Part 1, which is considered to be his first play. Sometime between his marriage and writing this play, he moved to London, where he pursued a career as a playwright and actor.

Although many records of Shakespeare's life as a citizen of Stratford have survived, including his marriage and birth certificates, very little information exists about his life as a young playwright. Legend characterizes Shakespeare as a roguish young man who was once forced to flee London under suspect circumstances, perhaps related to his love life, but the paltry amount of written information does not necessarily confirm this facet of his personality.

In any case, young Will was not an immediate universal success. The earliest written record of Shakespeare's life in London comes from a statement by his rival playwright Robert Greene. In Groatsworth of Witte (1592), Greene calls Shakespeare an "upstart crow...[who] supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you." While this is hardly high praise, it does suggest that Shakespeare rattled London's theatrical hierarchy from the beginning of his career. In retrospect, it is possible to attribute Greene's complaint to jealousy of Shakespeare's ability, but the scarcity of evidence renders the comment ambiguous.

With Richard III, Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, and Titus Andronicus under his belt, Shakespeare became a popular playwright by 1590.* The year 1593, however, marked a major leap forward in his career when he secured a prominent patron: The Earl of Southampton. In addition, Venus and Adonis was published; it one of the first of Shakespeare's known works to be printed, and it was a huge success. Next came The Rape of Lucrece. By this time, Shakespeare had also made his mark as a poet, as most scholars agree that he wrote the majority of his sonnets in the 1590s.

In 1594, Shakespeare returned to the theater and became a charter member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men - a group of actors who changed their name to the King's Men when James I ascended the throne. By 1598, Shakespeare had been appointed the "principal comedian" for the troupe; by 1603, he was "principal tragedian." He remained associated with the organization until his death. Although acting and playwriting were not considered noble professions at the time, successful and prosperous actors were relatively well respected. Shakespeare’s success left him with a fair amount of money, which he invested in Stratford real estate. In 1597, he purchased the second largest house in Stratford - the New Place - for his parents. In 1596, Shakespeare applied for a coat of arms for his family, in effect making himself a gentleman. Consequently, his daughters made “good matches,” and married wealthy men.

The same year that he joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labour's Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, and several other plays. In 1600, he wrote two of his greatest tragedies, Hamlet and Julius Caesar. Historians and scholars consider Hamlet to be the first modern play because of its multi-faceted main character and unprecedented depiction of the human psyche.

The first decade of the seventeenth century witnessed the debut performances of several of Shakespeare’s most celebrated works, including many of his so-called history plays: Othello in 1604 or 1605; Antony and Cleopatra in 1606 or 1607; and King Lear in 1608. The last of Shakespeare's plays to be performed during his lifetime was most likely King Henry VIII in either 1612 or 1613.

William Shakespeare died in 1616. His wife Anna died in 1623, at the age of 67. Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of his church at Stratford.

History of the Marlovian Shakespeare Authorship Theory

Source: shakespeareanauthorshiptrust.org

The idea that the plays of Marlowe and Shakespeare were written by the same person was first suggested anonymously in 1819 in Monthly Review when an anonymous writer asked ‘Can Christopher Marlowe have been a nom de guerre assumed for a time by Shakespeare? ... This much is certain, that, during the five years of the nominal existence of Marlowe, Shakespeare did not produce a single play.’

The first person to publish a reversal of this idea, suggesting Marlowe wrote the Shakespeare canon, was lawyer and author Wilbur G. Zeigler. In the preface to his 1895 novel, It Was Marlowe: a story of the secret of three centuries, Zeigler explains his disenchantment with both the orthodox and Baconian narratives, and his reasons for forwarding Marlowe as the author: chiefly a ‘similarity of vocabularies, versification and thought of the Marlowe and Shakespeare dramas’ (as he summarises it in a letter of 1916). In the novel, he creates an imaginary narrative about how the deception might have occurred.

In 1901, Marlovian theory received an unexpected boost from Dr Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, a distinguished physicist and President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. An early exponent of 'stylometry', Mendenhall applied the statistical principle of frequency distribution to explore the idea that the occurrence of different word-lengths in a writer's work formed a unique pattern, which could be used to identify that writer's authorship of other texts. Asked by a wealthy Baconian to compare the distribution curves of Bacon and Shakespeare, he found no match; comparing Shakespeare’s plays with those of his contemporaries, he noted a 4-word ‘spike’ that no other playwright replicated - except Marlowe. He described the match as a ‘sensation’ and published his findings in Popular Science Monthly, with graphs showing an almost exact correspondence. Both writers used an average of 240 four-letter words per thousand, 130 five-letter words and 60 six-letter words, with other word-lengths close if not exact.

On the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death, in 1916, the Pulitzer prize-winning editor of Louisville's Courier-Journal, Henry Watterson, a friend of Mark Twain, supported the Marlovian theory, also through a fictional account of how it might have happened. This piece was the source of the information, subsequently pursued by Calvin Hoffman and others, that Marlowe died in Padua in 1627, nursed by someone called Pietro Basconi: a theory conclusively debunked in 2012 by a small group of Marlovian researchers.

The first essay solely on the subject was written by Archie Webster in 1923 in The National Review. In an article entitled ‘Was Marlowe the Man?’ Webster explored the problems orthodox scholars have found in matching the autobiographical content of Shakespeare’s sonnets with his known life: and offered a succinct but fairly comprehensive Marlovian reading of the sonnets.

In 1925, Leslie Hotson published his discovery of the inquest on Marlowe’s death. Though Hotson was in no doubt that Marlowe died in Deptford on 30 May 1593, his research revealed for the first time the name of Marlowe’s apparent killer – Ingram Frizer - and two named witnesses, Robert Poley and Nicholas Skeres. That all three were professional liars (secret service agents and conmen) and all connected to Marlowe’s friend and patron Thomas Walsingham threw the reliability of the inquest document into question.

Perhaps the most influential Marlovian was American theatre critic, press agent and writer Calvin Hoffman. In 1955 he published The Man Who Was Shakespeare, resting his case for Marlowe’s authorship mainly on numerous textual parallels between the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare, and outlining a possible narrative of events. In Hoffman’s version of the theory, a drunken sailor was killed to provide a substitute body, and Marlowe’s escape was orchestrated by Thomas Walsingham, whom Hoffman believed was Marlowe’s lover. Hoffman’s 1955 visit to Chislehurst, Kent, to open Walsingham’s grave in the hope of finding Shakespeare manuscripts, led directly to the formation of the UK Marlowe Society. Hoffman’s will founded the Calvin & Rose G Hoffman Memorial Prize, aimed to promote Marlovian scholarship. In addition to an annual essay prize, anyone providing 'irrefutable and incontrovertible proof' of Marlowe’s authorship of Shakespeare’s works will be awarded half the Trust Fund.

Marlovian theory was extended and deepened considerably by the work of Hoffman-inspired Dolly Walker-Wraight, who as A.D. Wraight published four books about Marlowe. In Search of Christopher Marlowe (1965) was a relatively orthodox biography. Christopher Marlowe and Edward Alleyne (1993), argued for Marlowe as the author of Edward III and challenged the conventional identification of the ‘upstart crow’. The Story that the Sonnets Tell (1994) developed Webster’s Marlovian reading of the sonnets. Shakespeare: New Evidence (1996) introduced discoveries, made jointly with Peter Farey in the Lambeth Palace Library archives, of papers concerning an intelligence agent named Le Doux, a possible posthumous identity of Marlowe.

1997 marked the launch of Farey’s website, a comprehensive resource for original documents and texts relating to Marlowe, and the home of his numerous essays on the Marlowe authorship theory. Farey is the only Marlovian to have twice been recipient of the annual Calvin Hoffman Prize (which has historically been awarded to orthodox scholars). Also in 1997, David More’s essay ‘Drunken Sailor or Imprisoned Writer?’ was the first to suggest John Penry as a viable substitute body for Marlowe. John Penry, imprisoned for his writing, was executed just three miles from Deptford on 29 May 1593, and the whereabouts of his body has never been discovered.

In 2001, Michael Rubbo, an award-winning Australian documentary film maker, made the TV film Much Ado About Something for PBS Frontline, exploring Marlovian theory and interviewing prominent Marlovians such as A.D.Wraight and Peter Farey, as well as orthodox academics such as Stanley Wells, Jonathan Bate and Charles Nicholl. Repeat screenings on PBS, as well as screenings on the BBC and Australia’s ABC led to this film influencing a new generation of Marlovians including Daryl Pinkson, Carlo diNota and Ros Barber.

2005 saw the publication of Rodney Bolt’s novel History Play, a well-received fictional biography of Marlowe as the author of Shakespeare’s works constructed from a combination of real and invented historical evidence.

In 2008, Carlo DiNota founded the The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection blog, which has become a key repository of independent Marlovian scholarship. 2008 also saw the publication of Daryl Pinksen’s Marlowe’s Ghost: The Blacklisting of the Man Who Was Shakespeare. Pinksen compares Archbishop Whitgift’s English Inquisition of the 1590s with Senator McCarthy’s communist witch hunts of the 1950s, arguing that comparable conditions of political/religious paranoia and censorship might drive writers to similar solutions – in particular, the employment of a ‘front’ to protect a persecuted writer’s identity. He cites Dalton Trumbo, whose Oscar for the screenplay of the 1953 film Roman Holiday was for sixty years awarded to his front Ian McLellan Hunter.

In 2009, Mike Rubbo, Daryl Pinksen, Isabel Gortazar, Peter Farey, Carlo DiNota, Samuel Blumenfeld and Ros Barber founded the International Marlowe-Shakespeare Society, whose website provides permanent and updated Marlovian resources, as well as a discussion forum.

2010 marked the first academic paper on Marlovian Theory to be published in a peer-reviewed academic journal: Ros Barber’s ‘Exploring Biographical Fictions: The Role of Imagination in Writing and Reading Narrative’ (Rethinking History 14:2). Barber’s 2011 PhD in English literature made her the first professional Marlovian scholar. Her fictional exploration of the theory, verse novel The Marlowe Papers (2012), was winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2013, joint winner of both the Hoffman prize 2011 and The Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2013, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Christened as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 in the small river town of Florida, Missouri, just 200 miles from Indian Territory. The sixth child of John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton, Twain lived in Florida, Missouri until the age of four, at which time his family relocated to Hannibal in hopes of improving their living situation.

By lineage, Twain was a Southerner, as both his parents' families hailed from Virginia. The slaveholding community of Hannibal, a river town with a population of 2000, provided a mix of rugged frontier life and the Southern tradition, a lifestyle that influenced Twain's later writings, including the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Few black slaves actually resided in Hannibal, and the small farms on the delta were no comparison to the typical Southern plantation. In Hannibal, blacks were mostly held as household servants rather than field workers, but were still under the obligations of slavery.

In his youth, Twain was a mischievous boy, the prototype of his character, Tom Sawyer. Though he was plagued by poor health in his early years, by age nine he had already learned to smoke, led a small band of pranksters, and had developed an aversion to school. Twain's formal schooling ended after age 12, because his father passed away in March of that year. He became an apprentice in a printer's shop and then worked under his brother, Orion, at the Hannibal Journal, where he quickly became saturated in the newspaper trade. Rising to the role of sub-editor, Twain indulged in the frontier humor that flourished in journalism at the time: tall tales, satirical pranks, and jokes.

However, over the next few years, Twain found himself unable to save any wages and grew restless. He decided to leave Hannibal in June of 1853 and accepted a position in St. Louis. Soon afterwards, rather than settling in St. Louis, Twain proceeded to travel back and forth between New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Iowa, working as a journalist. After his wanderings, Twain ultimately switched professions, realizing an old boyhood dream of becoming a river pilot.

Under the apprenticeship of Horace Bixby, pilot of the Paul Jones, Mark Twain became a licensed river pilot at the age of 24. Earning a high salary navigating the river waters, Twain was entertained by his work, and enjoyed his traveling lifestyle. In 1861, with the beginning of the Civil War, Twain's piloting days came to an end.

After returning home to Hannibal, Twain learned that military companies were being organized to assist Governor Jackson, and he enlisted as a Confederate soldier. Within a short period, he abandoned the cause, deserted the military, and along with thousands of other men avoiding the draft, moved West. On his way to Nevada, twelve years after the Gold Rush, Twain's primary intentions were to strike it rich mining for silver and gold. After realizing the impossibility of this dream, Twain once again picked up his pen and began to write.

Twain joined the staff of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and became an established reporter/humorist. In 1863, he adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain, derived from a river pilot term describing safe navigating conditions. In 1869 he published his first book of travel letters entitled Innocents Abroad. The book was criticized widely and discouraged Twain from pursuing a literary career. In the years that followed, Twain published various articles, made lecture circuits, and relocated between San Francisco, New York, and Missouri. During this time he also met Olivia Langdon, whom he married on February 2, 1870. In November of the same year, their first son, Langdon Clemens, was born prematurely.

The Clemens family quickly fell into debt. However, when over 67,000 copies of Innocents Abroad sold within its first year, the American Publishing Company asked Twain for another book. Upon Olivia's request, the couple moved to the domicile town of Hartford, Connecticut, where Twain composed Roughing It, which documented the post-Gold Rush mining epoch and was published in 1872.

In March of 1872, Twain's daughter Susan Olivia was born, and the family appeared prosperous. Unfortunately, Langdon soon came down with Diphtheria and died. Twain was torn apart by his son's death, and blamed himself. Moreover, Roughing It was only mildly successful, which added to the family's hardships.

After traveling to Europe for a lecture series, Twain experienced a turning point in his career. Twain's newest novel, The Gilded Age, written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner, was published in 1873. The novel is about the 1800s era of corruption and exploitation at the expense of public welfare. The Gilded Age was Twain's first extended work of fiction and marked him in the literary world as an author rather than a journalist.

After the broad success of The Gilded Age, Twain began a period of concentrated writing. In 1880, his third daughter, Jean, was born. By the time Twain reached age fifty, he was already considered a successful writer and businessman. His popularity sky-rocketed with the publications of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1882), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). By 1885, Twain was considered one the greatest character writers in the literary community.

Twain died on April 21, 1910, having survived his children Langdon, Susan and Jean as well as his wife, Olivia. In his lifetime, he became a distinguished member of the literati, and was honored by Yale, the University of Missouri, and Oxford with literary degrees. With his death, many volumes of his letters, articles, and fables were published, including: The Letters of Quintas Curtius Snodgrass (1946); Simon Wheeler, Detective (1963); The Works of Mark Twain: What is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings (1973); and Mark Twain's Notebooks and Journals (1975-79). Perhaps more than any other classic American writer, Mark Twain is seen as a phenomenal author, but also as a personality that defined an era.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. It is set in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived.

Summary:

An imaginative and mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is made to whitewash the fence as punishment on Saturday. At first, Tom is disappointed by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. He trades these treasures for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses and uses the tickets to claim a Bible as a prize. He loses much of his glory, however, when, in response to a question to show off his knowledge, he incorrectly answers that the first two disciples were David and Goliath.

Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get “engaged” to him. Their romance collapses when she learns that Tom has been “engaged” before—to a girl named Amy Lawrence. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, to the graveyard at night to try out a “cure” for warts. At the graveyard, they witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the Native-American “half-breed” Injun Joe. Scared, Tom and Huck run away and swear a blood oath not to tell anyone what they have seen. Injun Joe blames his companion, Muff Potter, a hapless drunk, for the crime. Potter is wrongfully arrested, and Tom’s anxiety and guilt begin to grow.

Tom, Huck, and Tom’s friend Joe Harper run away to an island to become pirates. While frolicking around and enjoying their newfound freedom, the boys become aware that the community is sounding the river for their bodies. Tom sneaks back home one night to observe the commotion. After a brief moment of remorse at the suffering of his loved ones, Tom is struck by the idea of appearing at his funeral and surprising everyone. He persuades Joe and Huck to do the same. Their return is met with great rejoicing, and they become the envy and admiration of all their friends.

Back in school, Tom gets himself back in Becky’s favor after he nobly accepts the blame for a book that she has ripped. Soon Muff Potter’s trial begins, and Tom, overcome by guilt, testifies against Injun Joe. Potter is acquitted, but Injun Joe flees the courtroom through a window.

Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck go hunting for buried treasure in a haunted house. After venturing upstairs they hear a noise below. Peering through holes in the floor, they see Injun Joe enter the house disguised as a deaf and mute Spaniard. He and his companion, an unkempt man, plan to bury some stolen treasure of their own. From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the prospect of digging it up. By an amazing coincidence, Injun Joe and his partner find a buried box of gold themselves. When they see Tom and Huck’s tools, they become suspicious that someone is sharing their hiding place and carry the gold off instead of reburying it.

Huck begins to shadow Injun Joe every night, watching for an opportunity to nab the gold. Meanwhile, Tom goes on a picnic to McDougal’s Cave with Becky and their classmates. That same night, Huck sees Injun Joe and his partner making off with a box. He follows and overhears their plans to attack the Widow Douglas, a kind resident of St. Petersburg. By running to fetch help, Huck forestalls the violence and becomes an anonymous hero.

Tom and Becky get lost in the cave, and their absence is not discovered until the following morning. The men of the town begin to search for them, but to no avail. Tom and Becky run out of food and candles and begin to weaken. The horror of the situation increases when Tom, looking for a way out of the cave, happens upon Injun Joe, who is using the cave as a hideout. Eventually, just as the searchers are giving up, Tom finds a way out. The town celebrates, and Becky’s father, Judge Thatcher, locks up the cave. Injun Joe, trapped inside, starves to death.

A week later, Tom takes Huck to the cave and they find the box of gold, the proceeds of which are invested for them. The Widow Douglas adopts Huck, and, when Huck attempts to escape civilized life, Tom promises him that if he returns to the widow, he can join Tom’s robber band. Reluctantly, Huck agrees.

SONNET 18 by William Shakespeare

SONNET 18 by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. It was produced by the Playwrights' Company. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite.

Plot Overview
Brick is taking a shower in the bedroom he shares with his wife, Maggie. While undressing, Maggie complains that his brother Gooper and wife Mae have been having their monstrous children perform for Big Daddy, incessantly reminding him of their own childlessness. Now that Daddy is dying of cancer, Mae and Gooper are trying to cut them out of the estate. The doctors have lied to Daddy and Mama, claiming that Daddy only suffers from a spastic colon, but tonight the truth will be revealed.
Brick is not helping any with his incessant drinking and much-publicized stunt on the high school athletic field. Brick broke his ankle jumping hurdles. Maggie is confident of their advantage, because Big Daddy dotes on Brick, abhors Gooper and his wife, and has a "lech" for Maggie herself. Suddenly Maggie catches sight of Brick staring at her in the mirror. She cries that she knows she has become hard and frantic. Living with someone who does not love her has made her a "cat on a hot tin roof."
Fiercely Maggie locks the door and draws the curtains. As she attempts to seduce him, Brick warns her against making a fool of herself. Maggie murmurs she has realized her mistake: she should not have confessed to making love with Skipper.
Maggie continues and says that Brick and Skipper's love was sad and awful because it could never be satisfied or even talked about. Maggie recalls how on their double dates in college it always seemed the boys were out together. The night of the Thanksgiving game, Maggie confronted Skipper on his desire. He made a pitiful attempt to prove her wrong.
Threatening to kill her, Brick hurls his crutch at her. Maggie insists that now is her time of the month to conceive and they must make love. Brick wonders how she plans to have a child by a man who cannot stand her. Big Daddy enters ferociously and greets Brick. The servants enter with Daddy's cake, and a grotesque sing-a-long commences. Daddy furiously orders everyone to stop. Mama sobs that he has never believed that she loved him. "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true" Daddy murmurs.
Daddy bellows for Brick. Maggie delivers him, giving him a kiss on the mouth that he immediately wipes off. Daddy asks Brick why he wiped off her kiss. Mae and Gooper have been saying that he won't sleep with Maggie. As Brick freshens his drink, Daddy asks him about his drinking problem. Brick cannot explain.
Drawing Brick close, Daddy recalls his world tour with Mama. He anxiously closes the doors and asks if Brick has ever been terrified of anything. He aims to cut loose and get himself a woman. Brick explains that he has not gotten the click in his head that makes him peaceful, and he attempts to flee his father. Daddy makes Brick a deal: he will give him a drink if he tells him why he drinks. Daddy knows that Brick is lying since he started drinking when Skipper died. Daddy asks if there was something "abnormal" in their friendship.
Daddy replies that having just come from "death's country," he is not easily shocked. Brick insists that his friendship with Skipper was clean and true until Maggie got the idea Daddy is talking about. Upon his back injury, she put the idea into Skipper's head, and he became a lush and died. Daddy knows he is not telling the full story and Brick says that Skipper made a drunken confession to him over the phone, and Brick hung up on him. Brick's disgust with mendacity is disgust with himself. Daddy curses the "lying dying liars" around him and goes to bed.
Mae appears, and the family soon follows. Now that Daddy has gone to bed, they can finally talk. The family surrounds Mama and begins to tell her of Daddy's cancer. Mama calls for Brick, her "only son." She implores Maggie to help straighten Brick out so he can take over the place. Gooper protests and says he has always resented Daddy's love for Brick. Gooper and Mae present Mama with a drafted will and Mama rejects it in disgust.
Mama embraces the distant Brick, begging him to provide Big Daddy with a grandson before he dies. Suddenly Maggie announces that she and Brick are to have a child. Sobbing, Mama flees jubilantly to tell Big Daddy. Mae accuses Maggie of lying. Maggie thanks Brick for saving her face. Brick puts down three shots, finds his click, and exits indifferently. Maggie forlornly gathers Brick's liquor bottles and locks them away, refusing to release it until he has sated her. Desperately she declares her love for him. The distant Brick can only reply: "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?"

 a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.