First Writer: Edgar Allen Poe Born: January 19, 1809 Died: October 7, 1849
My favorite poem by Edgar Allen Poe is El Dorado. It is about a gallant knight in search of El Dorado and as time goes on he grows older. In his journey, it seems like he meets death, but he continues on the road looking for El Dorado.
I like this poem because I can visualize it. Most poems are not set up like stories, they are more like rhymes of 'roses are red.' I think it makes a difference when a poem can rhyme and still hold a story in it. My favorite part is when the knight meets a pilgrim shadow who tells him where to go.
When Poe was young he attended a grammar school in Irvine, Scotland. He then returned to London, England with his unofficial adopted family, the Allen's, to attend Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington. After graduating, he returned to the United States and attended the University of Virginia.
Poe struggled to get where he is today. He tried to live solely by writing, which was an unconventional and unheard of way to live in the 1800s. Publishers wouldn't pay writers or they would very late, leaving Poe to beg for money and resources often. Finding no luck as just an author he went into work at magazine publishings like the Southern Literary Messenger, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, Graham's Magazine, Evening Mirror, and lastly the Broadway Journal.
I can't find any form of advise from Poe, but I believe if he did have any, it would most likely be something along the lines of "Be paid up front."
Second Writer: Stephen King Born: September 21, 1947
'Salem's Lot is my all time favorite book by Stephen King, even with tough competition by The Body, Green Mile, and Bag of Bones. It's the story about Ben Mears a successful writer who returns to Jerusalem's Lot after twenty five years away to find the small town infested with vampires. Trying to save it, he finds more trouble along the way when he starts to lose more allies than actually making them. With one ally, Mark Petrie, Ben and succeed in destroying the master vampire Barlow, but are lucky to escape with their lives and are forced to leave the town to the now leaderless vampires.
I really like this story because it really was a good one. It had such an intriguing story, from the characters, to the setting, and lastly the ending. Mark who wasn't religious in the beginning had found God in Mexico, after losing everything, but the most surprising was the fact that he convinced Ben that they had to go back and finish what they started.
Stephen King wrote this book in 1975 and though it has two minis series they hold nothing to the actual book. He still lives in Lovell, Maine, but owns a home in Bangor, Maine and now one in Florida. He still writes books, poems, novels, and short stories, but also has his own column with Entertainment magazine.
A list of his works can be found at http://www.stephenking.com/the_library.html
Stephen attended grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. He went on to attend school at University of Maine at Orono.
Stephen wasn't able to find a teaching job soon after graduating and worked as a laborer at an industrial laundry, selling a short story sale to men's magazines on the side. he found hist first major publication of his book Carrie in 1973, then 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, the Stand, and The Dead Zone. Where we now know him as the magnificent horror story writer he is.
"To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly – need to write more."
Writer Three: William Shakespeare Baptized April 26, 1564 Died April 23, 1616
Shakespeare's XII Sonette, is my absolute favorite. It is about time passing and as humans we cannot fight the inevitable death, but we can leave apart of ourselves on this earth by reproducing.
I like it because its an honest opinion. We will not live forever and one day death will come upon us, the best way to ensure a future for ourselves and to leave s piece of us behind is by reproducing. Ironic considering his writing is a classic.
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
This is my favorite part of the stanza and I can't really say why. It's just always stuck with me. I think maybe because it references the passing of time that it really struck me, because its a common way to see the passing of time, but its worded strangely compared to how we write now.
William Shakespeare is long since dead, but you can read his works online on free websites. Example: http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/
William Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford since it would have been closest to his home. After that there is little know about what he did, its rumored he was a school master for a time being before joining a theater troupe. He was writing poems and plays, and his involvement with theater troupes and acting is disparagingly condemned in a 1592 pamphlet that was distributed in London, attributed to Robert Green the playwright titled "Groats Worth of Witte" haughtily attacking Shakespeare as an "upstart crow." After Queen Elizabeth's death, during King James I rule, he and the theater troupe built The Globe Theater and Shakespeare truly began his literary career with his plays and sonnets. Its with the help of The Globe theater that we have his literary works today.
Some of the best advide that can be found from Shakespeare is in Hamlet. In it Hamlet offers directions and advice to a group of actors whom he has enlisted to play for the court of Denmark.
Hamlet: Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant — it out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.
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