Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen,
(April 2, 1805 - August 4, 1875) was a Danish author and poet famous for his
fairy tales.
Andersen was born in
Odense, Denmark, on the April 2, 1805. He was the son of a sickly young
shoemaker of twenty-two and his several years older wife. The whole family
lived and slept in one little room.
Hans Christian showed
imagination early. He built himself a little toy-theatre and sat at home making
clothes for his puppets, and reading all the plays that he could borrow; among
them were those of Ludvig Holberg and William Shakespeare.
King Frederick VI was
interested in the strange boy and sent him for some years, free of charge, to
the grammar-school at Slagelse. Before he started for school, Andersen published
his first volume, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave (1822). Andersen, a very
backward and unwilling pupil, actually remained at Slagelse and at another
school in Elsinore until 1827. These years, he says, were the darkest and
bitterest in his life. Collin at length consented to consider him educated, and
Andersen came to Copenhagen.
Life as an author
In 1829, Andersen had
considerable success with a fantastic volume entitled A Journey on Foot from
Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager, and he published in the same season
a farce and a book of poems. Early in 1835, Andersen's first novel, The
Improvisatore, appeared, and achieved real success.
Andersen now turned his
attention, with but ephemeral success, to the theatre, but was recalled to his
true genius in the charming miscellany of 1840, the Picture-Book without
Pictures the fame of his Fairy Tales had been steadily rising; a second series
began in 1838; a third in 1845.
Andersen was now
celebrated throughout Europe.He disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, in the
composition of which his unique genius lay. Nevertheless, he continued to write
them, and in 1847 and 1848 two fresh volumes appeared. After a long silence,
Andersen published another novel in 1857, To be or not to be. In 1863, after a very
interesting journey, he issued another of his travel-books, In Spain.
His Fairy Tales continued
to appear, in installments, until 1872, when, at Christmas, the last stories
were published. In the spring of that year, Andersen fell out of bed and
severely hurt himself. He was never again quite well, but he lived until the
4th of August 1875, when he died very peacefully in the house called Rolighed,
near Copenhagen.
In the English-speaking
world, the stories of The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, and The
Princess and the Pea, are cultural universals; everyone knows them, though few
could tell you their author. They have become part of the common heritage, and,
like the tales of Charles Perrault, are not distinguished from actual
folk-tales such as those of the Brothers Grimm.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was a celebrated Italian Renaissance
architect, musician, inventor, engineer, sculptor and painter.
He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and
as a universal genius. Leonardo is well known for his masterly paintings, such
as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He is also known for his many inventions that
were conceived well before their time but of which few were constructed in his
lifetime. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and
civil engineering.
Leonardo is well known
for the masterful paintings attributed to him, such as Last Supper (Ultima Cena
or Cenacolo, in Milan), painted in 1498, and the Mona Lisa (also known as La
Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris), painted in 1503–1506. There is
significant debate however, whether da Vinci himself painted the Mona Lisa, or
whether it was primarily the work of his students. Only seventeen of his
paintings, and none of his statues survive. Of these paintings, only Ginevra
de' Benci is in the Western Hemisphere.
Leonardo often planned grandiose
paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects
unfinished.
In 1481 he was commissioned to paint
the altarpiece "The Adoration of the Magi". After extensive,
ambitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and
Leonardo left for Milan.
He there spent many years making
plans and models for a monumental seven-metre (24-foot) high horse statue in
bronze ("Gran Cavallo"), to be erected in Milan. Because of war with
France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar
statue was completed according to some of his plans in 1999 in New York, given
to Milan and erected there. The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small
bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original
design.
Perhaps even more
impressive than his artistic work are his studies in science and engineering,
recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which
fuse art and science. He was left-handed and used mirror writing throughout his
life. Explainable by fact that it is easier to pull a quill pen than to push
it; by using mirror-writing, the left-handed writer is able to pull the pen
from right to left.
Guy Fawkes
Guido (Guy) Fawkes (also spelt contemporaneously
Faukes) (April 13, 1570 - January 31, 1606), who also used the pseudonym John
Johnson, was a member of a group of Catholic conspirators who endeavoured to
blow up King James I and all the members of both branches of the Parliament of
England while they were assembled in the House of Lords building for the formal
opening of the 1605 session of Parliament. The plot was uncovered and the
barrels of gunpowder defused before any damage was done. Fawkes was a convert
to Catholicism, which occurred at about the age of 16 if his admission of
recusancy at his preliminary interrogation is to be believed.
He was taken to the Tower of London and there
interrogated under torture. Since torture was forbidden except by the express
instruction of the monarch or the Privy Council, King James I in a letter of
November 6 stated: "The gentler tortours are to be first used unto him, et
sic per gradus ad maiora tenditur [and thus by increase to the worst], and so
God speed your goode worke". Initially he resisted torture. On November 8,
Fawkes verbally confessed revealed the names of his co-conspirators, and
recounted the full details of the plot on November 9. He made a signed
confession on November 10; his signature after torture on the rack is
strikingly shaky.
Guy Fawkes appears in the 2002 List of "100 Great
Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public), alongside
such other greats as David Beckham, Aleister Crowley, Winston Churchill and
Johnny Rotten. Cynical Britons are sometimes known to comment that Guy Fawkes
was the only man to go to Parliament with honourable intentions.
In an interesting example of semantic progression, Guy
Fawkes has become immortalised by one of the most common words in the English
language, particularly in American spoken English. The burning on 5 November of
an effigy of Fawkes, known as a "guy," led to the use of the word
"guy" as a term for "a person of grotesque appearance" and
then to a general reference for a man, as in "some guy called for
you." In the 20th century, under the influence of American popular
culture, "guy" gradually replaced "fellow,"
"bloke," "chap" and other such words there and the practice
is spreading throughout the English-speaking world.
The story of Guy Fawkes was a major inspiration for
Alan Moore's post-nuclear war tale of a fascist Britain, V for Vendetta. The
main character in that story is modeled on Fawkes.
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