Книга: Aesop, Edward Lear, Kenneth Grahame «Usborne Bedtime Stories for Little Children»

Aesop

biographical name Greek fabulist; probably legendary

Источник: Aesop

Edward Lear

Infobox Writer
name = Edward Lear


birthdate = birth date|1812|5|12
birthplace = Highgate, London, England
deathdate = death date and age|1888|1|29|1812|5|12
deathplace = Sanremo, Italy
occupation = Artist, Poet
nationality = British
period = 1830 - 1888
movement = Nonsense literature
= Illustrations of the Family of the Psittacidæ (1832)

Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator and writer known for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form which he popularised.

Biography

He was born in Highgate, a suburb of London, the 20th child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, Ann, twenty-one years his senior. At the age of fifteen, he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. He started work as a serious illustrator and his first publication, at the age of 19, was "Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots" in 1830. His paintings were well received and he was favorably compared with Audubon. Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously. He had a lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson's poems; near the end of his life a volume with a small number of illustrations was published, but his vision for the work was never realized. Lear briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, leading to some awkward incidents when he failed to observe proper court protocol.

He was not a healthy man. From the age of six until the time of his death he suffered frequent "grand mal" epileptic seizures, as well as bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition. His adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public view. How Lear was able to anticipate them is not known, but many people with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears or an "aura" before the onset of a seizure. During Edward Lear's life, epilepsy was still believed to be associated with demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and loneliness. When Lear was about seven, possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood, he began to show signs of depression. He suffered from periods of severe depression which he referred to as "the Morbids." [cite book |title=The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense |last=Lear |first=Edward |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2002 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=New York |isbn=0142002275 |pages=19-20 ]

In 1846 Lear published "A Book of Nonsense", a volume of limericks which went through three editions and helped popularize the form. In 1865 "The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple" was published, and in 1867 his most famous piece of nonsense, "The Owl and the Pussycat", which he wrote for the children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Many other works followed.

Lear's nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour circulated that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and the books' true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works: his patron the Earl of Derby. Supporters of this rumour offered as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an anagram of "Earl". [cite book|last=Lear|first=Edward|title=More Nonsense Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc.|year=1894|chapter=Introduction|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13650/13650-h/13650-h.htm#introduction3]

Lear's limericks

Edward Lear's nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet's delight in the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed rhinoceros becomes a "diaphanous doorscraper". A "blue Boss-Woss" plunges into "a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud". His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies. His most famous piece of verbal invention occurs in the closing lines of "The Owl and the Pussycat":

They dined on mince, and slices of quince
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Though famous for his use of invented words, he was hardly reliant upon them for effect; witness, for example, "Cold Are The Crabs", [ [http://ingeb.org/songs/coldaret.html Cold Are The Crabs] ] with its adherence to the sonnet tradition until the dramatically foreshortened last line.

The "runcible spoon", a Lear neologism, entered the language and is now found in many English dictionaries.

Limericks are invariably typeset as five lines today, but Edward Lear's limericks were published in a variety of formats. It appears that Lear wrote them in manuscript basically in as many lines as there was room for beneath the picture. In the first three editions, most are typeset as, respectively, three, five, and three lines. The cover of one edition [ [http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/BoN/index.html Edward Lear, A Book of Nonsense ] ] bears an entire limerick typeset in only two lines, thus:

There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry;
So he made them a book, and with laughter they shook at the fun of that Derry down Derry.

In Lear's limericks the first and last lines usually end with the same word, rather than rhyming. For the most part, they are truly nonsensical and devoid of any punch line or point; there is nothing in them to "get". They are completely free of the off-colour humour with which the verse form is now associated. A typical thematic element is the presence of a callous and critical "they". An example of a typical Lear limerick:

There was an Old Man of Aôsta,
Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her;
But they said, 'Don't you see,
she has rushed up a tree?
You invidious Old Man of Aôsta!'

Among Lear's tremble-bembles and the chippy-wippy-sikki-tees can be found some very felicitous turns of phrase. Lear's self-portrait in verse, "How Pleasant to know Mr. Lear," closes with this stanza, a pleasant reference to his own mortality:

He reads but he cannot speak Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger-beer;
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

Five of Lear's limericks from the Book of Nonsense, in the 1946 Italian translation by Carlo Izzo, were set to music for choir a cappella by Goffredo Petrassi, in 1952.

Works

*"Illustrations of the Family of the Psittacidæ" (1832)
*"Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles" by J.E. Gray
*"Views in Rome and its Environs" (1841)
*"Gleanings from the Menagerie at Knowsley Hall" (1846)
*"Illustrated Excursions in Italy" (1846)
*"Book of Nonsense" (1846)
*"Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania" (1851)
*"Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria" (1852)
*"Book of Nonsense and More Nonsense" (1862)
*"Views in the Seven Ionian Isles" (1863)
*"Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica" (1870)
*"Nonsense Songs and Stories" (1871)
*"More Nonsense Songs, Pictures, etc." (1872)
*"Laughable Lyrics" (1877)
*"Nonsense Alphabets"
*"Nonsense Botany" (1888)
*"Tennyson's Poems, illustrated by Lear" (1889)
*"Facsimile of a Nonsense Alphabet" (1849, but not published until 1926)
*"The Scroobious Pip", unfinished at his death, but completed by Ogden Nash and illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert (1968)
*"The Quangle-Wangle's Hat" (unknown)

Others

*"Edward Lear's Parrots" by Brian Reade, Duckworth (1949), including 12 coloured plates reproduced from Lear's "Psittacidae"
* The 1970 Saturday morning cartoon "Tomfoolery", based on the works of Lear and Lewis Carroll

Illustrations

References

External links

*
* [http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/?c=juv&m=hrat&t=lear,%20edward,,,&f=AU,+TX,+FC,+TI Full text, images, and covers of several of Edward Lear's books] available as Open Access from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature
* [http://www.bencourtney.com/ebooks/lear/ Edward Lear's Books of Nonsense]
* [http://public-domain.zorger.com Scans of illustrations from the Nonsense series of books]
* [http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear Edward Lear Home Page] at [http://www.nonsenselit.org nonsenselit.org]
* [http://www.reelyredd.com/0501longlegs.htm Reelyredd's Poetry Pages] The Daddylonglegs and The Fly (audio file)
* [http://www.phryne.com/artists/16-47-41.HTM Phryne's list of pictures by Lear in accessible UK collections]
* [http://www.ansp.org/museum/digital_collections/lear/index.php Parrot Gallery at The Academy of Natural Sciences]
* [http://www.bompa.org/ The Owl and the Pussy-cat translation project] Available in more than 55 languages

ee also

*List of wildlife artists

Источник: Edward Lear

Kenneth Grahame

Infobox Writer
name = Kenneth Grahame


caption =
birthdate = birth date|1859|03|08
birthplace = Edinburgh, Scotland
deathdate = death date and age|1932|07|06|1859|03|08
deathplace = Pangbourne, Berkshire, England
occupation = Novelist
genre = Fiction
movement =
notableworks = The Wind in the Willows
influences =
influenced =
website =

Kenneth Grahame (March 8, 1859 – July 6, 1932) was a British writer, most famous for "The Wind in the Willows" (1908), one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote "The Reluctant Dragon", which was much later adapted into a Disney movie.

Life

Grahame was born in Edinburgh, Scotland but in early childhood, after his mother died and his father began to drink heavily, he moved to live with his grandmother on the banks of the River Thames in Cookham in southern England. He was an outstanding pupil at St Edward's School in Oxford and wanted to attend Oxford University but was not allowed to do so by his guardian on grounds of cost. Instead he was sent to work at the Bank of England in 1879, and rose through the ranks until retiring as its Secretary in 1908 [ [Bank of England Museum - From Quill Pen to ComputerThe Bank of England's Staff from 1694 - http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/museum/exhibitions/past11.htm] ] due to ill health. In addition to ill health, Grahame's retirement was precipitated in 1903 by a strange, possibly political, shooting incident at the bank [ Kenneth Grahame: Lost in the wild wood. The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/10/sv_windinthewillows.xml&page=1] . Grahame was shot at three times, all of them missed [Kenneth Grahame: Lost in the wild wood. The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/10/sv_windinthewillows.xml&page=1] .

Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899, but the marriage was not a happy one. They had only one child, a boy named Alastair, who was born blind in one eye and was plagued by health problems throughout his short life. Alastair eventually committed suicide on a railway track while an undergraduate at Oxford University, two days before his 20th birthday on 7 May, 1920 [The Kenneth Grahame Society - Biography http://www.kennethgrahamesociety.net/biography.htm] . Out of respect for Kenneth Grahame, Alastair's demise was recorded as an accidental death.

Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire in 1932. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of the American expatriate author James Blish. Grahame's cousin Anthony Hope, also a successful author, wrote his epitaph, which reads:"To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the River on the 6 July 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time". [cite book | last = Carpenter | first = Humphrey | authorlink = Humphrey Carpenter | coauthors = Mari Prichard | title = The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature | publisher = Oxford University Press | date = 1991 | location = Oxford | pages = 216-219 | url = | doi = | id = ISBN 0-19-211582-0]

Works

While still a young man, Grahame began to publish light stories in London periodicals such as the "St. James Gazette". Some of these stories were collected and published as "Pagan Papers" in 1893, and, two years later, "The Golden Age". These were followed by "Dream Days" in 1898, which contains "The Reluctant Dragon".

There is a ten-year gap between Grahame's penultimate book and the publication of his triumph, "The Wind in the Willows". During this decade Grahame became a father. The wayward headstrong nature he saw in his little son he transformed into the swaggering Mr. Toad, one of its four principal characters. Despite its success, he never attempted a sequel. Others, years after his death, have done that for him. The book was a hit and is still enjoyed by adults and children today, whether in book form or in the films.

Bibliography

* "Pagan Papers" (1893)
* "The Golden Age" (1895)
* "Dream Days" (1898)
**Including "The Reluctant Dragon" (1898)
* "The Headswoman" (1898)
* "The Wind in the Willows" (1908)

Further reading

Peter Green, the historian of Hellenistic Greece, wrote a biography of Grahame in 1959 and subsequently wrote the introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition of "The Wind in the Willows".

References

External links

* (Including all of the above four books)
* An online literary society focusing on the life and works of Kenneth Grahame is at [http://www.kennethgrahamesociety.net www.kennethgrahamesociety.net]
* Spoken voice version of Wind in the Willows is at [http://librivox.org/the-wind-in-the-willows-by-kenneth-grahame-solo/] Early20CBritChildrensLiterature

Persondata
NAME= Grahame, Kenneth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= British novelist
DATE OF BIRTH= March 8, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH= Edinburgh, Scotland
DATE OF DEATH= July 6, 1932
PLACE OF DEATH= Pangbourne, Berkshire, England

Источник: Kenneth Grahame