LIFE AND LITERATURE

                                                                       THE RAVEN                                                                                              -EDGAR ALLAN POE       An unnamed speaker sits in his chamber on a dreary December night, reading old, esoteric books. He dearly misses his love, Lenore, who presumably died recently, and he hopes that reading will distract him from his loss. He has nearly fallen asleep when he suddenly hears someone—or something—knocking on the door.       He is instantly uneasy but r...

 INTRODUCTION  Joseph Addison was a famous English essayist, dramatist, journalist, and politician. Addison, one of the gentlest of men, early became a scholar of note along with Steele he developed the English essay form in the direction indicated by Cowley and devoted himself to the production of short essays suitable for publication in the periodicals which began to be popular in the early eighteenth century _ the Tattler and the Spectator. His style is polished, easy, and pleasant and his English was regarded as a model of perfection for two hundred years.  CHARACTER OF WILL WIMBLE  Addison’s essay, “The Character of Will Wimble” is about a person called Will Wimble. It traces his character. He ends the prose by universalizing the problem of difference between two brothers – the younger and the elder.His essays are noted for their clarity and elegant style, as well as their cheerful and respectful humour.  MR. WIMBLE'S LETTER TO SIR ROGER  Joseph Addiso...

 INTRODUCTION  Francis Bacon was a prose writer of renaissance age, a great philosopher and pioneer of scientific thoughts. He had set some goals in his life. One is to serve his country, second is to serve the church and the other is to learn the truth. His interest in his science and reasoning lead him to write critically about the aspects of life. He wrote many essays which till today receives appreciation and is up to date. Being an essayist his aim was to share the wisdom of his life. Bacon’s style is most remarkable for his preciseness. He has a great command of condensation of the sentences. Each sentence of his essay contains multiple meanings and references. He combines wisdom with brevity and his short, pithy sayings become famous as mottoes and useful expressions.  OF STUDIES  The essay Of Studies by Sir Francis Bacon is the first essay in the series of ten essays published in 1597. Later, it was revised in 1612 with the addition of so...

Daniel Defoe   Author , Journalist ( c. 1660–1731 ) English novelist, pamphleteer and journalist Daniel Defoe is best known for his novels Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. Daniel Defoe: Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in London, England. He became a merchant and participated in several failing businesses, facing bankruptcy and aggressive creditors. He was also a prolific political pamphleteer which landed him in prison for slander. Late in life he turned his pen to fiction and wrote Robinson Crusoe , one of the most widely read and influential novels of all time. Defoe died in 1731. Early Life Daniel Foe, born circa 1660, was the son of James Foe, a London butcher. Daniel later changed his name to Daniel Defoe, wanting to sound more gentlemanly. Defoe graduated from an academy at Newington Green, run by the Reverend Charles Morton. Not long after, in 1683, he went into business, having given up an earlier intent on becoming a dissenting minister. He travel...

JOHN WEBSTER Born sometime around 1580, John Webster was to be the last of the great Elizabethan playwrights. Much like many of his contemporaries, little is known of the poet himself. There was a John Webster admitted to the Middle Temple on August 1, 1598. If this Webster and the dramatist were one and the same, it would explain the many legal allusions in his plays and the inclusion of trial scenes in The White Devil, The Devil's Law Case, and Appius and Virginia . The earliest known records of Webster's employment as a playwright are found in the diary of theatre manager Phillip Henslowe at the beginning of the new century. Among the payments which Henslowe noted in his diary in 1602 were those made to Webster, Anthony Munday, Thomas Middleton, Michael Drayton "and the rest" for a play entitled Caesar's Fall . Over the next decade or so, Henslowe's records show Webster collaborating with Dekker and Heywood, writing a prologue to Marston...