cao xueqin

Cao Xueqin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Cao Xueqin
Statue of Cao Xueqin in Beijing
Born: ca. 1715
Nanjing
Died: ca. 1763
Beijing suburbs
Occupation: Novelist, Poet, Painter
Influences: Li He
Influenced: Eileen Chang, Ba Jin, Cao Yu, Lin Yutang

Cao Xueqin (Chinese: 曹雪芹; Pinyin: Cáo Xuěqín; Wade-Giles: Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in, ca. 1715—1763) is the author of Dream of the Red Chamber, believed by many to be the greatest novel written in the Chinese language. His given name was Cao Zhan (曹霑) and his courtesy name is Mengruan (夢阮).
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Family
* 2 Life
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links

[edit] Family

Cao belonged to a Han Chinese clan which later became part of the Plain White Branch (正白旗) of the Manchu Banners. Although forced into slavery (包衣) to Manchu royalties in the late 1610s, his ancestors distinguished themselves through military campaigns and subsequently held posts in officialdom.

Under the Emperor Kangxi(康熙皇帝) the clan's prestige and power reaches its height. Cao Xueqin's grandfather, Cao Yin (曹寅), was a former playmate to the Emperor Kangxi, and Cao Yin's own mother was the wet nurse to the infant Emperor Kangxi. Two years upon his ascension, Kangxi appointed Cao Xueqin's great-grandfather, Cao Xi (曹玺), as the Commissioner of Imperial Textiles in Jiangning(江宁织造).

When Cao Xi died in 1684, Yin(曹寅), as Kangxi's personal confidante, took over the post. Cao Yin was one of the era's most prominent man of letters and a keen book collector. By the early 1700s, the Cao clan had become so rich and influential as to be able to play host four times to the Emperor Kangxi in his six separate itinerant trips down south to Nanjing.

When Cao Yin died in 1712, Kangxi, still in power, passed the office over to Yin's only son, Cao Yong (曹颙). Yong himself died in 1715. Kangxi then allowed the family to adopt a paternal nephew, Cao Fu (曹頫), as Cao Yin's posthumous son(嗣子,过继子) to continue in that position. Hence the clan held the office of Imperial Textile Commissioner at Jiangning for three generations.

The family's fortunes lasted until Kangxi's death and the ascension of Emperor Yongzheng(雍正皇帝) to the throne. Yongzheng was much less tolerant of the debts the family chalked in office. By 1727, after a series of warnings, he decided to confiscate the entire Cao house properties, including their mansion, and put Cao Fu under arrest. Many believe this purge was politically motivated. When Cao Fu was released a year later, the family, totally impoverished, was forced to relocate to Beijing. Cao Xueqin, still a young child then, followed the family in this odyssey.

[edit] Life

Cao Xueqin was either the son of Cao Fu or Cao Yong. If his father was Cao Yong he must be born in 1715, posthumous to Yong's death. Redology scholars are still debating Cao Xueqin's exact date of birth, though he is known to be around forty to fifty at his death. Almost nothing has survived which records Cao Xueqin's early childhood and adulthood.

Most of what we know about Cao Xueqin was passed down from his contemporaries and friends. Cao himself eventually settled in the Western suburbs of Beijing where he lived through the larger part of his late years in poverty selling off his paintings. Friends and acquaintances reported an intelligent, highly talented man who spent a decade working diligently on a work that must have been Dream of the Red Chamber. They praised both his stylish paintings, particularly of cliffs and rocks, and originality in poetry, which they likened to Li He's. Cao Xueqin died some time in 1763 or 1764, leaving his novel in a very advanced stage of completion. He was survived by a wife and at least one son.

Cao Xueqin achieved posthumous fame through his life's work. The novel, written in "blood and tears", as a commentator friend said, is a vivid recreation of an illustrious family at its height and its subsequent downfall. A small group of close family and friends appears to be transcribing his manuscript when Cao died quite suddenly in 1763-4. Extant handwritten copies of this work – some 80 chapters – had been in circulation in Beijing shortly after Cao’s death and scribal copies soon became prized collectors' items.

In 1791, Cheng Weiyuan(程伟元) and Gao E(高鹗), who claimed to have access to Cao’s working papers, published a complete, edited 120-chapter version. This is its first moveable type print edition. Reprinted a year later with more revisions, this 120-chapter edition is the novel's most printed version. Modern scholars generally think the 1791 ending – the last 40 chapters – to be a forgery.

[edit] See also

* Chinese literature
* List of Chinese authors

[edit] References

* Liu, Shide, "Cao Xueqin". Encyclopedia of China, 1st ed.

[edit] External links

* Works by Cao Xueqin at Project Gutenberg

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Xueqin"

Categories: Chinese historical novelists | Chinese novelists | 1763 deaths

qu yuan

Qu Yuan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Qu Yuan
Qu Yuan
Qu Yuan's Names
Simplified Chinese: 屈原
Traditional Chinese: 屈原
Pinyin: Qū Yuán
Family name: Qu
Traditional Chinese: 屈
Simplified Chinese: 屈
Given name: Ping
Traditional Chinese: 平
Simplified Chinese: 平
Courtesy name (字): Yuan
Traditional Chinese: 原
Simplified Chinese: 原
Alias Given name (自名): Zhengze
Traditional Chinese: 正則
Simplified Chinese: 正则
Alias Courtesy name (别字): Lingjun
Traditional Chinese: 霛均
Simplified Chinese: 灵均

Qu Yuan (Chinese: 屈原; Pinyin: Qū Yuán) (ca. 340 BC - 278 BC) was a Chinese patriotic poet from southern Chu during the Warring States Period. His works are mostly found in an anthology of poetry known as Chu Ci. His death is commemorated on Duan Wu or Tuen Ng Festival (端午节/端午節), commonly known as the Dragon Boat Festival in the West.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Biography
* 2 The origin of the Duan Wu Festival
* 3 Reputation
* 4 Works
* 5 References
* 6 External links

[edit] Biography

Qu Yuan was a minister in the government of the state of Chu, descended of nobility and a champion of political loyalty and truth eager to maintain the Chu state's sovereignty. Qu Yuan advocated a policy of alliance with the other kingdoms of the period against the hegemonic state of Qin, which threatened to dominate them all. The legend has it that the Chu king, however, fell under the influence of other corrupt, jealous ministers who slandered Qu Yuan, and banished his most loyal counselor. It is said that Qu Yuan returned first to his family's home town. In his exile, he spent much of this time collecting legends and rearranging folk odes while travelling the countryside, producing some of the greatest poetry in Chinese literature while expressing his fervent love for his state and his deepest concern for its future. However, modern analysis of Qu Yuan's work suggests that Qu Yuan and the Chu King were actually homosexual lovers, and therefore Qu Yuan's dismissal from the imperial court and subsequent suicide were likely due to his failed relationship with the King.[1]

According to legend, his anxiety brought him to an increasingly troubled state of health; during his depression, he would often take walks near a certain well, during which he would look upon his reflection in the water and be his own person, thin and gaunt. In the legend, this well became known as the "Face Reflection Well." Today on a hillside in Xiangluping in Hubei province's Zigui, there is a well which is considered to be the original well from the time of Qu Yuan.

In 278 BC, learning of the capture of his country's capital, Ying, by General Bai Qi of the state of Qin, Qu Yuan is said to have written the lengthy poem of lamentation called "Lament for Ying" and later to have waded into the Miluo river in today's Hunan Province holding a great rock in order to commit ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era.

[edit] The origin of the Duan Wu Festival

Popular legend has it that villagers carried their dumplings and boats to the middle of the river and desperately tried to save him, but were unsuccessful. In order to keep fish and evil spirits away from his body, they beat drums and splashed the water with their paddles. They threw rice into the water as a food offering to Qu Yuan and to distract the fish away from his body. However, late one night, the spirit of Qu Yuan appeared before his friends and told them that he died because of a river dragon. He asked his friends to wrap their rice into three-cornered silk packages to ward off the dragon. These packages became a traditional food known as zong zi, although the lumps of rice are now wrapped in reed leaves instead of silk. The act of racing to search for his body in boats gradually became the cultural tradition of dragon boat racing, which is held on the anniversary of his death every year.

Today, people still eat zongzi and participate in dragon boat races to commemorate Qu Yuan's sacrifice on the Duan Wu festival, the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

[edit] Reputation

Qu Yuan is generally recognised as the first great Chinese poet with record. He initiated the style of Sao, which is named after his work Li Sao, in which he abandoned the classic four-character verses used in poems of Shi Jing and adopted verses with varying lengths, which gives the poem more rhythm and latitude in expression. Qu Yuan is also regarded as one of the most prominent figures of Romanticism in Chinese literature, and his masterpieces influenced some of the greatest Romanticist poets in Tang Dynasty such as Li Bai and Du Fu.

Other than his literary influence, Qu Yuan is also held as the earliest patriotic poet in China history. His political idealism and unbendable patriotism have served as the model for Chinese intellectuals to this day.

[edit] Works

Scholars have debated the authenticity of several of Qu Yuan's works since the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE - 9). The most authoritative historical record, Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji) mentions five of Qu Yuan's works:

* Li Sao
* Tian Wen
* Zhao Hun
* Ai Ying ("Lament for Ying")
* Huai Sha

According to Wang Yi of the Eastern Han dynasty (ca. 25 CE - 220 CE), a total of 25 works can be attributed to Qu Yuan:

* Li Sao
* Jiu Ge (consisting of 11 pieces)
* Tian Wen
* Jiu Zhang (consisting of 9 pieces)
* Yuan You
* Pu Ju
* Yu Fu

Wang Yi chose to attribute Zhao Hun to a poet of the Western Han dynasty, Song Yu; most modern scholars, however, consider Zhao Hun to be Qu Yuan's original work, whereas Yuan You, Pu Ju, and Yu Fu are believed to have been composed by others.
Wikisource
Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Works of Qu Yuan (in Chinese)

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.singpao.com/20060704/feature/854548.html.

[edit] External links

* "Qu Yuan {Chu Yuan}, the great poet"
* "Rice Dumpling Recipe - What they used to feed the fish"
* "The Dragon Boat Festival" (article reproduced from Volume 1, number 2 of the newsletter of Families with Children from China of the San Francisco Bay Area)

wu cheng en

biography
name: Wu Chengen
also spelled Wu Ch'eng-en

pronunciation: [woo chengen]

sex: male
lived: (1505–82)

biography: Writer, from a merchant family, born in Huai-an, Kiangsu Province, E China. He fused popular oral traditions into Journey to the West, one of four great Ming period novels. Based around Xuanzang's 7th-c trip to India, it focuses on a supernatural disciple, Monkey, converted from Taoism and sent by Buddha to protect Xuanzang from demons by using a magic pin in his ear as an iron cudgel. The work lampoons traditional officialdom, and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) it inspired Red Guards, who identified with the intelligent, personable Monkey (his cudgel represented Mao's thoughts). Serialized on Chinese television in recent years, an English translation is entitled Monkey.

asma nadia

Asma Nadia

Asma Nadia adalah nama pena Asmarani Rosalba yang lahir di Jakarta tahun 1972 dari pasangan Amin Usman dan Maria Eri Susianti. Setelah lulus dari SMU 1 Budi Utomo, Jakarta, ia mulai aktif mengirimkan tulisannya ke majalah-majalah Islam, selain tetap aktif menulis lagu yang sebagian bisa ditemukan di album Bestari I (1996), Bestari II (1997 ), dan Bestari III (2003), Snada The Presentation, Air Mata Bosnia (Snada), Cinta Ilahi (Snada), dan Kaca Diri.
Kini ibu dari dua orang anak: Eva Maria Putri Salsabila dan Adam Putra Firdaus ini adalah Ketua Yayasan Lingkar Pena, manager Lingkar Pena Publishing House, dan Ketua I Forum Lingkar Pena
Profilnya dimuat dalam buku Profil Perempuan Pengarang, Peneliti dan Penerbit di Indonesia (editor Korrie Layun Rampan, 2000). Dua cerpennya masuk dalam antologi kumpulan cerpen terbaik majalah Annida: Merajut Cahaya (Pustaka Annida). Asma juga sempat mengikuti Pertemuan Sastrawan Nusantara XI di Brunei Darusalam, workshop penulisan novel yang diadakan Majelis Sastra Asia Tenggara (MASTERA), dan diundang mengisi acara workshop penulisan yang diadakan ICMI ORSAT Cairo.

hilman hariwijaya

Hilman Hariwijaya

JAGO NGOCOL SE-INDONESIA
Lahir di Jakarta, tanggal 25 Agustus, bintangnya Virgo, bo! Hilman yang turunan Jasun alias Jawa-Sunda ini punya papa tentara berpangkat kolonel. Mulai ngarang sejak ABG, dengan membuat serial Lupus di majalah HAI yang berhasil mengangat namanya. Ia juga pernah juara ngarang di majalah yang sama. Pernah kuliah di UNAS jurusan Sastra Inggris.

Hilman Hariwijaya dengan Lupus-nya merupakan fenomena dalam dunia penerbitan Indonesia. Lupus#1: Tangkaplah Daku Kau Kujitak, terbit Desember 1986, cetakan pertamanya sebanyak 5.000 eksemplar habis dalam waktu kurang dari satu minggu. Hilman menulis puluhan judul yang meliputi seri Lupus, Lupus ABG, Lupus Kecil, Lupus Milenia, Olga, Lulu, Keluarga Hantu, Vanya, Vladd, Dua Pelangi dan beberapa judul lepas. Beberapa karyanya ditulis bersama Boim,Gusur dan satu bernama Zara Zettira. Tiras total penjualan bukunya mencapai jutaan eksemplar!Jumlah yang luar biasa untuk ukuran Indonesia,mengingat tiras "normal" buku lain rata-rata 3.000-5.000 eksemplar,dan itu pun tidak habis terjual dalam waktu satu tahun.

Kisah Lupus menggambarkan gaya hidup remaja. Sarat dengan humor orisinal, terutama unik dalam gaya bahasa dan pilihan kata yang seenaknya. Tapi justru dengan gaya bahasa seperti itulah yang pernah dianggap merusak bahasa Indonesia-Lupus menjadi produk yang khas,disukai dan diakrabi para remaja.

Seri Lupus sudah difilmkan, baik di layar lebar maupun dalam bentuk sinetron. Sedangkan seri Lulu, Olga, Vanya dan Vladd serta beberapa cerita lepas lainnya telah disinetronkan.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Life
* 2 Career
* 3 Political views
* 4 Visual Media
* 5 Bibliography
o 5.1 Poetry
o 5.2 Fiction
o 5.3 Non-Fiction
o 5.4 Major Plays
o 5.5 Works for Children
o 5.6 Other
* 6 Notes
* 7 References
* 8 See also
* 9 External links

[edit] Life
Langston Hughes as a baby in 1902, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes as a baby in 1902, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The son of Carrie Langston Hughes (a teacher) and her husband, James Nathaniel Hughes, Langston Hughes was born James Mercer Langston Hughes in Joplin, Missouri. After abandoning his family and the resulting legal dissolution of the marriage later, James Hughes left for Cuba, then Mexico, due to enduring racism in the United States.[1] After the separation of his parents, young Langston was left to be raised mainly by his grandmother, Mary Langston, as his mother sought employment. Through the black American oral tradition of storytelling, she would instill in the young Langston Hughes a sense of indelible racial pride.[2][3][4] He spent most of childhood in Lawrence, Kansas. After the death of his grandmother, he went to live with family friends, James and Mary Reed, for two years. Due to an unstable early life, his childhood was not an entirely happy one, but it was one that heavily influenced the poet he would become. Later, he lived again with his mother in Lincoln, Illinois, who had remarried when he was still an adolescent, and eventually in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended high school.
Langston Hughes in Cleveland, Ohio high school circa 1919-1920, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes in Cleveland, Ohio high school circa 1919-1920, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

While in grammar school in Lincoln, Illinois, he was designated class poet. Hughes stated in retrospect that this was because of the stereotype that African Americans have rhythm.[5] "I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everyone knows — except us — that all Negroes have rhythm, so they elected me as class poet."[6] During high school in Cleveland, Ohio, he wrote for the school newspaper, edited the yearbook, and began to write his first short stories, poetry, and dramatic plays. His first piece of jazz poetry, When Sue Wears Red, was written while he was still in high school. It was during this time that he discovered his love of books. From this early period in his life, Hughes would cite as influences on his poetry the American poets Paul Laurence Dunbar and Carl Sandburg. Hughes spent a brief period of time with his father in Mexico in 1919. The relationship between his father and him was troubled, causing Hughes a degree of dissatisfaction that led him to contemplate suicide at least once.fact Upon graduating from high school in June of 1920, Hughes returned to live with his father, hoping to convince him to provide money to attend Columbia University. Hughes later said that, prior to arriving in Mexico again, "I had been thinking about my father and his strange dislike of his own people. I didn't understand it, because I was a Negro, and I liked Negroes very much."[7][8][9] Initially, his father hoped for Langston to attend a university anywhere but in the United States, and to study for a career in engineering. On these grounds, he was willing to provide financial assistance to his son. James Hughes did not support his son's desire to be a writer. Eventually, Langston and his father came to a compromise. Langston would study engineering, so long as he could attend Columbia. His tuition provided, Hughes left his father after more than a year of living with him. While at Columbia in 1921, Hughes managed to maintain a B+ grade average. He left in 1922 because of racial prejudice within the institution, and his interests revolved more around the neighborhood of Harlem than his studies, though he continued writing poetry.[10]
Langston Hughes, photographed by Nickolas Muray, 1923
Langston Hughes, photographed by Nickolas Muray, 1923

Hughes worked various odd jobs, before serving a brief tenure as a crewman aboard the S.S. Malone in 1923, spending six months traveling to West Africa and Europe.[11] In Europe, Hughes left the S.S. Malone for a temporary stay in Paris. Unlike specific writers of the post-World War I era who became identified as the "Lost Generation", such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hughes instead spent time in Paris during the early 1920s, becoming part of the black expatriate community. In November 1924, Hughes returned to the U. S. to live with his mother in Washington, D.C. Hughes again found work doing various odd jobs before gaining white-collar employment in 1925 as a personal assistant to the scholar Carter G. Woodson within the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Not satisfied with the demands of the work and time constraints this position placed on the hours he spent writing, Hughes quit this job for one as a busboy in a hotel. It was while working as a busboy that Hughes would encounter the poet Vachel Lindsay. Impressed with the poems Hughes showed him, Lindsay publicized his discovery of a new black poet, though by this time, Hughes' earlier work had already been published in magazines and was about to be collected into his first book of poetry.
Langston Hughes, Lincoln University, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes, Lincoln University, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The following year, Hughes enrolled in Lincoln University, PA, a HBCU, where he became a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, the first black fraternal organization founded at a historically black college and university.[12][13] Thurgood Marshall, who later became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was an alumnus and classmate of Langston Hughes during his undergraduate studies at Lincoln University.

Hughes received a B.A. degree from Lincoln University in 1929 and a Litt.D. in 1943 from Lincoln. A second honorary doctorate would be awarded to him in 1963 by Howard University, another HBCU. Except for travels that included parts of the Caribbean and West Indies, Harlem was Hughes’s primary home for the remainder of his life.
The terrazzo and brass African cosmogram titled Rivers on the floor in front of the Langston Hughes auditorium in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Designed by artist Houston Conwill, poet Estella Conwill Majozo, and architect Joseph DePace
The terrazzo and brass African cosmogram titled Rivers on the floor in front of the Langston Hughes auditorium in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Designed by artist Houston Conwill, poet Estella Conwill Majozo, and architect Joseph DePace

.

On May 22, 1967, Hughes died from complications after abdominal surgery, related to prostate cancer, at the age of 65. His ashes are interred beneath a floor medallion in the middle of the foyer leading to the auditorium named for him within the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.[14] The design on the floor covering his cremated remains is an African cosmogram titled Rivers. The title is taken from the poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Hughes. Within the center of the cosmogram and precisely above the ashes of Hughes are the words My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Many of Hughes' papers reside at his alma mater in the Langston Hughes Memorial Library on the campus of Lincoln University, PA, as well as at the James Weldon Johnson Collection within the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In 1981, Landmark status was given to the Harlem home of Langston Hughes at 20 East 127th Street by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and 127th St. was renamed Langston Hughes Place.[15]

[edit] Career
Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues, Cover design by Miguel Covarrubias, 1926
Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues, Cover design by Miguel Covarrubias, 1926

First debuting in The Crisis in 1921, the prose that would become the signature poem of Hughes appeared in his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, published in 1926, The Negro Speaks of Rivers:[16]

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Jessie Fauset,Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston,1927, Tuskegee. Courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Jessie Fauset,Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston,1927, Tuskegee. Courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Hughes' life and work were enormously influential during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s alongside those of his contemporaries, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas, who, collectively, (with the exception of McKay), created the short-lived magazine Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists.

Hughes and his contemporaries were often in conflict with the goals and aspirations of the black middle class, and the three considered the midwives of the Harlem Renaissance, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Alain Locke, who they accused of being overly fulsome in accommodating and assimilating eurocentric values and culture for social equality. Of primary conflict were the depictions of the "low-life", that is, the real lives of blacks in the lower social-economic strata and the superficial divisions and prejudices based on skin color within the black community.[17] Hughes wrote what would be considered the manifesto for himself and his contemporaries published in The Nation in 1926, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain:

The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express
our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame.
If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not,
it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly, too.
The tom-tom cries, and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people
are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure
doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow,
strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain
free within ourselves.

Hughes was unashamedly black at a time when blackness was demode, and he didn’t go much beyond the themes of black is beautiful as he explored the black human condition in a variety of depths.[18] His main concern was the uplift of his people who he judged himself the adequate appreciator of and whose strengths, resiliency, courage, and humor he wanted to record as part of the general American experience.[19][20] Thus, his poetry and fiction centered generally on insightful views of the working class lives of blacks in America, lives he portrayed as full of struggle, joy, laughter, and music. Permeating his work is pride in the African American identity and its diverse culture. "My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind,"[21] Hughes is quoted as saying. Therefore, in his work he confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America’s image of itself; a “people’s poet” who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting the theory of the black aesthetic into reality.[22] An expression of this is the poem My People:[23]
Langston Hughes, Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Rudolph Fisher, & Hubert Delany. African American writers influenced the Négritude movement in France. Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Claude Mckay were the most influential. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes, Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Rudolph Fisher, & Hubert Delany. African American writers influenced the Négritude movement in France. Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Claude Mckay were the most influential. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Moreover, Hughes stressed the importance of a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism absent of self-hate that united people of African descent and Africa across the globe and encouraged pride in their own diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic. Langston Hughes was one of the few black writers of any consequence to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists.[24] His African-American race consciousness and cultural nationalism would influence many foreign black writers, such as Jacques Roumain, Nicolás Guillén, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Aimé Césaire. With Senghor and Césaire and other French-speaking writers of Africa and of African descent from the Caribbean like René Maran from Martinique and Léon Damas from French Guiana in South America, the works of Hughes helped to inspire the concept that became the Négritude movement in France where a radical black self-examination was emphasized in the face of European colonialism.[25][26] Langston Hughes was not only a role model for his calls for black racial pride instead of assimilation, but the most important technical influence in his emphasis on folk and jazz rhythms as the basis of his poetry of racial pride.[27]
Langston Hughes & Griff Davis. While at Atlanta University, Hughes and Davis collaborated on a word and photo essay documenting and contrasting the African American bourgeoisie community and poor black ghettos in Atlanta, Georgia. Their work later appeared in Ebony magazine. Photograph Griff Davis, 1947.
Langston Hughes & Griff Davis. While at Atlanta University, Hughes and Davis collaborated on a word and photo essay documenting and contrasting the African American bourgeoisie community and poor black ghettos in Atlanta, Georgia. Their work later appeared in Ebony magazine. Photograph Griff Davis, 1947.

In 1930, his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon Gold Medal for literature.[28] The protagonist of the story is a boy named Sandy whose family must deal with a variety of struggles imposed upon them due to their race and class in society in addition to relating to one another. Hughes first collection of short stories came in 1934 with The Ways of White Folks.[29][30] These stories provided a series of vignettes revealing the humorous and tragic interactions between whites and blacks. Overall, these stories are marked by a general pessimism about race relations, as well as a sardonic realism.[31] He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935. In 1938, Hughes would establish the Harlem Suitcase Theater followed by the New Negro Theater in 1939 in Los Angeles, and the Skyloft Players in Chicago in 1941. The same year Hughes established his threatre troupe in Los Angeles, his ambition to write for the movies materialized when he co-wrote the screenplay for Way Down South.[32] Further hopes by Hughes to write for the lucrative movie trade were thwarted because of racial discrimination within the industry.[33] Through the black publication Chicago Defender, Hughes in 1943 gave creative birth to Jesse B. Semple, often referred to and spelled Simple, the everyday black man in Harlem who offered musings on topical issues of the day. He was offered to teach at a number of colleges, but seldom did. In 1947, Hughes taught a semester at the predominantly black Atlanta University. Hughes, in 1949, spent three months at the integrated Laboratory School of the University of Chicago as a "Visiting Lecturer on Poetry." He wrote novels, short stories, plays, poetry, operas, essays, works for children, and, with the encouragement of his best friend and writer, Arna Bontemps, and patron and friend, Carl Van Vechten, two autobiographies, The Big Sea and I Wonder as I Wander, as well as translating several works of literature into English. Much of his writing was inspired by the rhythms and language of the black church, and, the blues and jazz of that era, the music he believed to be the true expression of the black spirit; an example is "Harlem" (sometimes called "Dream Deferred") from Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951), from which a line was taken for the title of the play A Raisin in the Sun.[34]

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes with African writer Chinua Achebe in Lagos, Nigeria, 1962. Achebe was one of the many African American and African writers whom Hughes heavily influenced. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes with African writer Chinua Achebe in Lagos, Nigeria, 1962. Achebe was one of the many African American and African writers whom Hughes heavily influenced. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

During the mid 1950s and 1960s, Hughes popularity among the younger generation of black writers varied as his reputation increased worldwide. With the gradual advancement toward racial integration, many black writers considered his writings of black pride and its corresponding subject matter out of date. They considered him a racial chauvinist.[35] He in turn found a number of writers like James Baldwin lacking in this same pride, over intellectualizing in their work, and occasionally vulgar.[36][37][38] Hughes wanted young black writers to be objective about their race, but not scorn or to flee it.[39] With the Black Power movement of the 1960s, though he was able to understand the main points of it, he believed that some of the younger black writers who supported it were too angry in their work. Hughes' posthumously published Panther and the Lash in 1967 was intended to show solidarity and understanding with these writers but with more skill and absent of the most virile anger and terse racial chauvinism some showed toward whites.[40][41][42] Hughes still continued to have admirers among the larger younger generation of black writers who he often helped by offering advice to and introducing to other influential persons in the literature and publishing communities. This latter group, who happened to include Alice Walker who Hughes discovered, looked upon Hughes as a hero and an example to be emulated in degrees and tones within their own work. One of these young black writers observed of Hughes, "Langston set a tone, a standard of brotherhood and friendship and cooperation, for all of us to follow. You never got from him, 'I am the Negro writer,' but only 'I am a Negro writer.' He never stopped thinking about the rest of us."[43]
Langston Hughes after he was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal in 1960, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes after he was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal in 1960, photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

In 1960, the NAACP awarded Hughes the Spingarn Medal for distinguished achievements by an African American. Hughes was inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1961. In 1973, the first Langston Hughes Medal was awarded by the City College of New York.

[edit] Political views

Hughes, like many black writers and artists of his time, was drawn to the promise of Communism as an alternative to a segregated America. Many of his lesser-known political writings have been collected in two volumes published by the University of Missouri Press and reflect his attraction to Communism. An example is the poem A New Song:[44]
Langston Hughes, photographed by James Latimer Allen, 1930s
Langston Hughes, photographed by James Latimer Allen, 1930s

I speak in the name of the black millions
Awakening to action.
Let all others keep silent a moment
I have this word to bring,
This thing to say,
This song to sing:

Bitter was the day
When I bowed my back
Beneath the slaver's whip.

That day is past.

Bitter was the day
When I saw my children unschooled,
My young men without a voice in the world,
My women taken as the body-toys
Of a thieving people.

That day is past.

Bitter was the day, I say,
When the lyncher's rope
Hung about my neck,
And the fire scorched my feet,
And the oppressors had no pity,
And only in the sorrow songs
Relief was found.

That day is past.

I know full well now
Only my own hands,
Dark as the earth,
Can make my earth-dark body free.
O thieves, exploiters, killers,
No longer shall you say
With arrogant eyes and scornful lips:
"You are my servant,
Black man-
I, the free!"

That day is past-

For now,
In many mouths-
Dark mouths where red tongues burn
And white teeth gleam-
New words are formed,
Bitter
With the past
But sweet
With the dream.
Tense,
Unyielding,
Strongand sure,
They sweep the earth-

Revolt! Arise!

The Black
And White World
Shall be one!
The Worker's World!

The past is done!

A new dream flames
Against the
Sun!

Langston Hughes with his friends on board Europa-Bremen, Meschrabpam's American Negro Film Group, June 17, 1932. Seated front center from left to right are Louise Thompson Patterson and Dorothy West. On board ship was also Ralph Bunche who was visiting Paris with Alain Locke. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes with his friends on board Europa-Bremen, Meschrabpam's American Negro Film Group, June 17, 1932. Seated front center from left to right are Louise Thompson Patterson and Dorothy West. On board ship was also Ralph Bunche who was visiting Paris with Alain Locke. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

In 1932, Hughes became part of a group of disparate blacks who went to the Soviet Union to make a film depicting the plight of most blacks living in the United States at the time. The film was never made, but Hughes was given the opportunity to travel extensively through the Soviet Union and to the Soviet controlled regions in Central Asia, the latter parts usually closed to Westerners. In Turkmenistan, Hughes met and befriended the Hungarian polymath Arthur Koestler. Hughes would also manage to travel to China and Japan before returning home to the States.

Hughes' poetry was frequently published in the CPUSA newspaper and he was involved in initiatives supported by Communist organizations, such as the drive to free the Scottsboro Boys. Partly as a show of support for the Republican faction during the Spanish Civil War, in 1937 Hughes travelled to Spain as a correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American and other various African American newspapers. Hughes was also involved in other Communist-led organizations like the John Reed Clubs and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, even though he was more of a sympathizer than an active participant. He signed a statement in 1938 supporting Joseph Stalin's purges and joined the American Peace Mobilization in 1940 working to keep the U.S. from participating in World War II. Hughes initially did not favor black American involvement in the war because of the irony of U.S. Jim Crow laws existing at the same time a war was being fought against Fascism and the Axis Powers. He came to support the war effort and black American involvement in it after coming to understand that blacks would also be contributing to their struggle for civil rights at home.[45]
Langston Hughes, before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953
Langston Hughes, before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953

Hughes was accused of being a Communist by many on the political right, but he always denied it. When asked why he never joined the Communist Party, he wrote "it was based on strict discipline and the acceptance of directives that I, as a writer, did not wish to accept." In 1953, he was called before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations led by Senator Joseph McCarthy . Following his appearance, he distanced himself from Communism and was subsequently rebuked by some who had previously supported him on the Radical Left. Over time, Hughes would distance himself from his most radical poems. In 1959 came the publication of his Selected Poems. Absent from this group of poems was his most controversial work.

[edit] Visual Media

In visual media, Hughes has been the subject of two theatrical plays by African American playwrights whose subject matter concerned in part or whole the fact of his being gay, Hannibal of the Alps by Michael Dinwiddie and Paper Armor by Eisa Davis. In the 1989 film, Looking for Langston by British filmmaker Isaac Julien, Hughes is reclaimed as a black gay icon from where there is a consistent attempt to ignore or at least downplay his homosexuality because he is such a towering figure in African American literature; his icon status among the African American community is contingent on his heterosexuality.[46] It has been noted that to retain the respect and support of black churches and organizations and avoid exacerbating his precarious financial situation, Hughes remained closeted.[47] Academics and biographers today acknowledge that Hughes was a homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, similar in manner to Walt Whitman, whose work Hughes cited as another influence on his poetry, and most patently in the short story Blessed Assurance which deals with a father's anger over his son's effeminacy and queerness.[48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55] Arnold Rampersad, the primary biographer of Hughes, determined that Hughes exhibited a preference for other African American men in his work and life.[56] This love of black men is evidenced in a number of reported unpublished poems to a black male lover.[57]

In the theatrical film Get on the Bus, directed by Spike Lee, a black gay character, played by Isaiah Washington, invokes the name of Hughes and punches a homophobic character while commenting, "This is for James Baldwin and Langston Hughes."

Also in visual media, the diminutive 5'4" Hughes was portrayed in the 2004 film Brother to Brother by 6'1" actor Daniel Sunjata. Prior to this film, in 2003, Hughes was portrayed as a teenager by actor Gary LeRoi Gray in the short film Salvation that was based on a portion of his autobiography the Big Sea.[58]

Regarding documentary film, the New York Center for Visual History included Langston Hughes as part of its Voices & Visions series of notable writers. Hughes' Dream Harlem by producer and director Jamal Joseph and distributed through California Newsreel is another such film where Hughes' steadfast racial pride and artistic independence is discussed.

[edit] Bibliography
Fine Clothes to the Jew by Langston Hughes, 1927. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Fine Clothes to the Jew by Langston Hughes, 1927. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

[edit] Poetry

* The Weary Blues. Knopf, 1926
* Fine Clothes to the Jew. Knopf, 1927
* The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations, 1931
* Dear Lovely Death, 1931
* The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. Knopf, 1932
* Scottsboro Limited: Four Poems and a Play. N.Y.: Golden Stair Press, 1932
* Shakespeare in Harlem. Knopf, 1942
* Freedom's Plow. 1943
* Fields of Wonder. Knopf,1947
* One-Way Ticket. 1949
* Montage of a Dream Deferred. Holt, 1951
* Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. 1958
* Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz. Hill & Wang, 1961
* The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times, 1967
* The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Knopf, 1994
* Let America be America Again, 2004

[edit] Fiction
The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes, 1961. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes, 1961. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

* Not Without Laughter. Knopf, 1930
* The Ways of White Folks. Knopf, 1934
* Simple Speaks His Mind. 1950
* Laughing to Keep from Crying, Holt, 1952
* Simple Takes a Wife. 1953
* Sweet Flypaper of Life, photographs by Roy DeCarava. 1955
* Simple Stakes a Claim. 1957
* Tambourines to Glory (book), 1958
* The Best of Simple. 1961
* Simple's Uncle Sam. 1965
* Something in Common and Other Stories. Hill & Wang, 1963
* Short Stories of Langston Hughes. Hill & Wang, 1996

[edit] Non-Fiction

* The Big Sea. New York: Knopf, 1940
* Famous American Negroes. 1954
* Marian Anderson: Famous Concert Singer. 1954
* I Wonder as I Wander. New York: Rinehart & Co., 1956
* A Pictorial History of the Negro in America, with Milton Meltzer. 1956
* Famous Negro Heroes of America. 1958
* Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP. 1962

[edit] Major Plays
Don't You Want to Be Free? (1938) by Langston Hughes was performed for his Harlem Suitcase Theatre in Harlem. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Don't You Want to Be Free? (1938) by Langston Hughes was performed for his Harlem Suitcase Theatre in Harlem. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

* Mule Bone, with Zora Neale Hurston. 1931
* Mulatto. 1935 (renamed The Barrier, an opera, in 1950)
* Troubled Island, with William Grant Still. 1936
* Little Ham. 1936
* Emperor of Haiti. 1936
* Don't You Want to be Free? 1938
* Street Scene, contributed lyrics. 1947
* Tambourines to glory. 1956
* Simply Heavenly. 1957
* Black Nativity. 1961
* Five Plays by Langston Hughes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963.
* Jericho-Jim Crow. 1964

[edit] Works for Children

* Popo and Fifina, with Arna Bontemps. 1932
* The First Book of the Negroes. 1952
* The First Book of Jazz. 1954
* The First Book of Rhythms. 1954
* The First Book of the West Indies. 1956
* First Book of Africa. 1964

[edit] Other

* The Langston Hughes Reader. New York: Braziller, 1958.
* Good Morning Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes. Lawrence Hill, 1973.
* The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2001.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ West.Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, 2003, p.160
2. ^ Hughes recalled his maternal grandmother’s stories: "Through my grandmother’s stories life always moved, moved heroically toward an end. Nobody ever cried in my grandmother’s stories. They worked, schemed, or fought. But no crying." Rampesad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. p.620
Langston Hughes with neighborhood children at the Children's Garden, 1955. To prevent the neighborhood children from routinely trampling on the small patch of earth beside the front steps of his Harlem residence, Hughes conceived of a tiny garden planted and kept by the children. It was named the Children's Garden. On a picket beside each plant was posted a child's name. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes with neighborhood children at the Children's Garden, 1955. To prevent the neighborhood children from routinely trampling on the small patch of earth beside the front steps of his Harlem residence, Hughes conceived of a tiny garden planted and kept by the children. It was named the Children's Garden. On a picket beside each plant was posted a child's name. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
3. ^ The poem Aunt Sues’s Stories (1921) is an oblique tribute to his grandmother and his loving Auntie Mary Reed. Rampersad.vol.1, 1986, p.43
4. ^ Imbued by his grandmother with a duty to help his race, he identified with neglected and downtrodden blacks all his life, and glorified them in his work. Brooks, Gwendolyn, (Oct. 12, 1986). The Darker Brother. The New York Times
5. ^ Langston Hughes Reads his poetry with commentary, audiotape from Caedmon Audio
6. ^ Langston Hughes, Writer, 65, Dead. (May 23, 1967). The New York Times
7. ^ Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1940), pp.54-56
8. ^ James Hughes, a wealthy lawyer and landowner and himself a black man, hated both the racism of the North and Negroes, whom he portrayed in crude racial caricature. Smith, Dinitia (Nov. 26, 1997). Child’s Tale About Race Has a Tale of Its Own. The New York Times
9. ^ And the father, Hughes said, "hated Negroes. I think he hated himself, too, for being a Negro. He disliked all of his family because they were Negroes." James Hughes was tightfisted, uncharitable, cold. Brooks, Gwendolyn, (Oct. 12, 1986). The Darker Brother. The New York Times
10. ^ Rampersad.vol.1, 1986, p.56
11. ^ Poem or To. F.S. first appeared in The Crisis in May 1925, and was reprinted in The Weary Blues and The Dream Keeper. Hughes never publicly identified F.S., but it is conjectured he was Ferdinand Smith, a merchant seaman whom the poet first met in New York in the early 1920s. Nine years older than Hughes, Smith first influenced the poet to go to sea. Born in Jamaica in 1893, Smith spent most of his life as a ship steward and political activist at sea--and later in New York as a resident of Harlem. Smith was deported back to Jamaica for alleged Communist activities and illegal alien status in 1951. Hughes corresponded with Smith up until 1961, when Smith died. Berry, p.347
12. ^ In 1926, a patron of Hughes, Amy Spingarn, wife of Joel Elias Spingarn, provided the funds ($300) for him to attend Lincoln University. Rampersad.vol.1, 1986,p.122-23
13. ^ In November of 1927, Charlotte Osgood Mason, (“Godmother” as she liked to be called), became Hughes' major patron. Rampersad. vol.1,1986,p.156
14. ^ Whitaker, Charles.Ebony magazine In Langston Hughes:100th birthday celebration of the poet of Black America. April 2002.
15. ^ Jean Carlson(2007). [1]Retrieved June 30, 2007.
16. ^ The Negro Speaks of Rivers: First published in Crisis (June 1921), p.17. Included in The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes Reader, and Selected Poems. In The Weary Blues, the poem is dedicated to W.E.B. Du Bois. The dedication does not appear in later printings of the poem. Hughes' first and last published poems appeared in The Crisis; more of his poems appeared in The Crisis than in any other journal. Rampesad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. p.23 & p.620, Knopf
17. ^ Hughes "disdained the rigid class and color differences the 'best people' drew between themselves and Afro-Americans of darker complextion, of smaller means and lesser formal education. Berry, 1983 & 1992, p.60
18. ^ "....but his tastes and selectivity were not always accurate, and pressures to survive as a black writer in a white society (and it was a miracle that he did for so long) extracted an enormous creative toll. Nevertheless, Hughes, more than any other black poet or writer, recorded faithfully the nuances of black life and its frustrations." Patterson, Lindsay (June 29, 1969). Langston Hughes--The Most Abused Poet in America? The New York Times
On February 1, 2002, The United States Postal Service added to its Black Heritage series of stamps the image of Langston Hughes. Photograph courtesty of the United States Postal Service
On February 1, 2002, The United States Postal Service added to its Black Heritage series of stamps the image of Langston Hughes. Photograph courtesty of the United States Postal Service
19. ^ Brooks, Gwendolyn, (Oct. 12, 1986). The Darker Brother. The New York Times
20. ^ Rampesad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. p.3
21. ^ Rampersad,1988,vol.2,p.418
22. ^ West. 2003, p.162
23. ^ My People: First published as Poem in Crisis (Oct.1923), p. 162, and The Weary Blues (1926). The title My People was used in The Dream Keeper (1932) and the Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (1959). Rampersad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. p.36 & p.623, Knopt.
24. ^ Rampersad.vol.2, 1988, p.297
25. ^ Rampersad.vol.1, 1986, p. 91
26. ^ Mercer Cook, African American scholar of French culture: "His (Langston Hughes) work had a lot to do with the famous concept of Négritude, of black soul and feeling, that they were beginning to develop." Rampersad.vol.1, 1986, p. 343
27. ^ Rampersad.vol.1, 1986, p. 343
28. ^ Charlotte Mason generously supported him (Hughes) for two years. She supervised the writing of his first novel, Not Without Laughter (1930). Her patronage of Hughes ended about the time the novel appeared. Rampersad. Langston Hughes. In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, 2001, p.207
29. ^ Noel Sullivan, after working out an agreement with Hughes, became a patron for him in 1933. Rampersad. vol.1, 1986, p.277
30. ^ Sullivan provided Hughes with the opportunity to complete the The Ways of White Folks (1934) in Carmel, California. Hughes stayed a year in a cottage Sullivan provided for him to work in. Rampersad. Langston Hughes. In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, 2001, p.207
31. ^ Rampersad. “Langston Hughes.” In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature.2001.p.207
32. ^ Co-written with Clarence Muse, African American Hollywood actor and musician. Rampersad.vol.1, 1986, p. 366-69
33. ^ Gwendolyn Brooks, who met Hughes when she was 16 says, "I met Langston Hughes when I was 16 years old, and saw enough of him in subsequent years to observe that, when subjected to offense and icy treatment because of his race, he was capable of jagged anger - and vengeance, instant or retroactive. And I have letters from him that reveal he could respond with real rage when he felt he was treated cruelly by other people. Brooks, Gwendolyn, (Oct. 12, 1986). The Darker Brother. The New York Times
Langston Hughes with fellow African American writer Gwendolyn Brooks for the promotion of The Poetry of the Negro in Chicago, 1949. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Langston Hughes with fellow African American writer Gwendolyn Brooks for the promotion of The Poetry of the Negro in Chicago, 1949. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
34. ^ Harlem(2): Reprinted in Selected Poems of Langston Hughs under the title Dream Deferred. Rampesad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. p.426 & p.676, Knopf
35. ^ Rampersad,1988,vol.2,p.207
36. ^ Langstons’s misgivings about the new black writing mainly concerned its emphasis on black criminality and on profanity. Rampersad, vol.2,p.207
37. ^ Hughes said, "There are millions of blacks who never murder anyone, or rape or get raped or want to rape, who never lust after white bodies, or cringe before white stupidity, or Uncle Tom, or go crazy with race, or off-balance with frustration." Rampersad, p.119, vol.2
38. ^ Langston eargerly looked to the day when the gifted young writers of his race would go beyond the clamor of civil rights and integration and take a genuine pride in being black....he found this latter quality starkly absent in even the best of them....Rampersad, vol. 2, p.310
39. ^ Rampersad.vol.2, 1988, p. 297
40. ^ "As for whites in general, Hughes did not like them...He felt he had been exploited and humiliated by them." Rampersad, 1988,vol.2,p.338
41. ^ Hughes' advice on how to deal with racists was "'Always be polite to them...be over-polite. Kill them with kindness.' But, he insisted on recognizing that all whites are not racist, and definitely enjoyed the company of those who sought him out in friendship and with respect." Rampersad, 1988,vol.2,p.368
42. ^ Langston Hughes’ critics have said that he was racist against whites. I would agree with that statement but would also say that Hughes had seen enough poor judgement in whites across the globe to feel that way. It is interesting that on the inside cover of The Ways of White Folks, Hughes says To Noel Sullivan, The ways of white folks; I mean some white folks… (The Ways of White Folks…inside cover). This clearly shows that Hughes saw the good in some whites and was not entirely militant in his thought. Seat, Rob(2000). An Analization of Langston Hughes.Retrieved September 7, 2006
43. ^ Rampersad,1988,vol.2,p.409
The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes, 1934. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes, 1934. Photograph courtesy of Yale University Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
44. ^ A New Song: The end of the poem was substantially changed when it was included in A New Song (New York: International Workers Order, 1938). The first version, in Opportunity (Jan. 1933), p. 123, and Crisis (March 1933), p.59. reads after line 39:

New words are formed,
Bitter
With the past
And sweet
with the dream.
Tense, silent,
Without a sound.
They fall unuttered--
Yet heard everywhere:

Take care!

Black world
Against the wall,
Open your eyes--

The long white snake of greed has struck to kill!

Be wary and
Be wise!

Before
The darker world
The future lies.

Rampesad, Arnold & Roessel, David (2002). In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. p.170 & p.643, Knopf
45. ^ Irma Cayton, African American, said "He had told me that it wasn't our war, it wasn't our business, there was too much Jim Crow. But he had changed his mind about all that." Rampersad,1988,vol.2,p.85
46. ^ Highleyman, Liz. (February 27, 2004)Past Out: Langston Hughes' legacy Retrieved October 15, 2006
47. ^ Aldrich, (2001), p.200
48. ^ Nero, Charles I. (1997).Queer Reprensentations: Reading Lives, Reading Cultures. In Martin Duberman (Ed.), Re/Membering Langston, p.192. New York University Press
49. ^ Yale Symposium, Was Langston Gay? commemorating the 100th birthday of Hughes in 2002
Jean Blackwell Hutson and Langston Hughes pictured at the Schomburg Collection with Pietro Calvi's bust of Ira Aldridge as Othello, 1948. Photograph courtesy of Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Jean Blackwell Hutson and Langston Hughes pictured at the Schomburg Collection with Pietro Calvi's bust of Ira Aldridge as Othello, 1948. Photograph courtesy of Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
50. ^ Schwarz, pp.68-88
51. ^ Although Hughes was extremely closeted, some of his poems hint at his homosexuality. These include: Joy, Desire, Cafe: 3 A.M., Waterfront Streets, Young Sailor, Trumpet Player, Tell Me, F.S. and some poems in Montage of a Dream Deferred. Langston Hughes page [2] Retrieved January 10, 2007
52. ^ ...Cafe 3 A.M. was against gay bashing by police, and Poem for F.S. which was about his friend Ferdinand Smith. Nero, Charles I. (1999), p.500
53. ^ Nero, Charles. Gay Literature. In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature, 2001, p.161
54. ^ Jean Blackwell Hutson, former chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, said, “He was always eluding marriage. He said marriage and career didn’t work.....It wasn’t until his later years that I became convinced he was homosexual.” Hutson & Nelson. Essence magazine, February 1992. p.96
55. ^ "Though there were infrequent and half-hearted affairs with women, most people considered Hughes asexual, insistent on a skittish, carefree 'innocence.' In fact, he was a closeted homosexual...."McClatchy,J.D. (2002).Langston Hughes: Voice of the Poet. New York: Random House Audio, p.12
56. ^ "Referring to men of African descent, Rampersad writes "...Hughes found some young men, especially dark-skinned men, appealing and sexully fascinating. (Both in his various artistic representations, in fiction especially, and in his life, he appears to have found young white men of little sexual appeal.) Virile young men of very dark complexion fascinated him. Rampersad, vol.2,1988,p.336
57. ^ Sandra West explicitly states Hughes' "apparent love for black men as evidenced through a series of unpublished poems he wrote to a black male lover named 'Beauty'." West,2003. p.162
58. ^ IMDb[3]Retrieved November 4,2006

Page from The Negro Mother & Other Dramatic Recitations (1931) by Langston Hughes and illustrated by Prentiss Taylor. With the aide of Carl Van Vechten, Hughes and Taylor created the short-lived Golden Stair Press. Photograph courtesy of the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution
Page from The Negro Mother & Other Dramatic Recitations (1931) by Langston Hughes and illustrated by Prentiss Taylor. With the aide of Carl Van Vechten, Hughes and Taylor created the short-lived Golden Stair Press. Photograph courtesy of the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution

[edit] References

* Aldrich, Robert (2001). Who's Who in Gay & Lesbian History. Routledge. ISBN 041522974X
* Bernard, Emily (2001). Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-45113-7
* Berry, Faith (1983.1992,). Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond Harlem. In On the Cross of the South, p.150; & Zero Hour, p.185-186. Citadel Press ISBN 0-517-14769-6
* Hutson, Jean Blackwell; & Nelson, Jill (February 1992). "Remembering Langston". Essence magazine, p.96.
* Joyce, Joyce A. (2004). A Historical Guide to Langston Hughes. In Steven C. Tracy (Ed.), Hughes and Twentieth-Century Genderracial Issues, p.136. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-514434-1
* Nero, Charles I. (1997).Queer Reprensentations: Reading Lives, Reading Cultures. In Martin Duberman (Ed.), Re/Membering Langston, p.192. New York University Press ISBN 0814718833
* Nero, Charles I. (1999).Columbia Reader on Lesbians and Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics. In Larry P. Gross & James D. Woods (Eds.), In Free Speech or Hate Speech: Pornography and its Means of Production, p.500. Culumbia University press ISBN 0231104472
* Nichols, Charles H. (1980). Arna Bontempts-Langston Hughes Letters, 1925-1967. Dodd, Mead & Company. ISBN 0-396-07687-4
* Ostrom, Hans (1993). Langston Hughes: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne. ISBN 0805783431
* Ostrom, Hans (2002). A Langston Hughes Encyclopedia. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002. ISBN 0313303924
* Rampersad, Arnold (1986). The Life of Langston Hughes Volume 1: I, Too, Sing America. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-514642-5
* Rampersad, Arnold (1988). The Life of Langston Hughes Volume 2: I Dream A World. In Ask Your Mama!, p.336. Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-514643-3
* Schwarz, Christa A.B. (2003). Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance. In Langston Hughes: A "true 'people's poet",pp.68-88.Indiana University Press ISBN 0-253-21607-9
* West, Sandra L. (2003). Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. In Aberjhani & Sandra West (Ed.), Langston Hughes, p.162. Checkmark Press ISBN 0-8160-4540-2

[edit] See also

* Harlem Renaissance
* African American literature
* Pan-Africanism
* Négritude

[edit] External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Langston Hughes
African American Portal

* Poems by Langston Hughes at PoetryFoundation.org
* The Collected Works of Langston Hughes
* Langston Hughes on Poets.org With poems, related essays, and links, from the Academy of American Poets
* A Centennial Tribute to L. Hughes at Howard University
* Representative Poetry Online, University of Toronto
* Montage of a Dream Deferred
* Review of Hughes’ I Dream A World
* A selection of Langston Hughes's more political poetry
* 1988 audio interview of Arnold Rampersad, author of The Life of Langston Hughes. Interview by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio
* Langston Hughes Elementary School, Lawrence, KS, including photos and texts of the writer
* Smithsonian "The Music in Poetry: Langston Hughes & His use of the Blues"
* Langston Hughes & His Poetry, Library of Congress
* The Worlds of Langston Hughes, Ford Foundation Report
* The Negro Artist and The Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes
* Beinecke Library,Yale University, Langston Hughes at 100
* Langston Hughes in Lawrence, KS: Photographs & Biographical Resources
* An Analization of Langston Hughes
* Phat African American Poetry Book
* Sweet Flypaper of Life with Roy DeCarava
* Langston Hughes -- "Dream Deferred,"Clip from the Langston Hughes program the Voices & Visions video
* Langston Hughes Papers on deposit at Yale
* America's Library, Library of Congress, Langston Hughes
* I Hear America Singing, PBS.ORG
* Obituary of Langston Hughes, The New York Times
* Atrium where the ashes of Langston Hughes reside in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem
* List of previewable works on Google Book Search by and concerning Langston Hughes

mark twain

Mark Twain
Dari Wikipedia Indonesia, ensiklopedia bebas berbahasa Indonesia.
Langsung ke: navigasi, cari
Mark Twain.
Mark Twain.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (30 November 1835 – 21 April 1910), lebih dikenal dengan nama pena-nya Mark Twain, adalah seorang novelis, penulis, dan pengajar berkebangsaan Amerika Serikat. Beberapa karyanya yang paling terkenal adalah The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court serta satu buku non fiksinya, Life on the Mississippi.

Mark Twain dilahirkan pada tahun 1835. Dia dibesarkan di Hannibal, Missouri, sebuah kota kecil dipinggir sungai Mississippi di Amerika Serikat. ketika remaja dia sangat tertarik kepada kapal-kapal uap yang berlalu-lalang di sungai Amerika Serikat yang besar itu.

Ketika berusia sangat muda, Twain sudah bekerja sebagai sorang juru cetak di sebuah percetakan, dan kadang-kadang sebagai seorang penulis surat kabar. Sebagai pemuda berumur belasan tahun, dia menjadi nakhoda kapal sungai dan selama empat tahun berlayar di sungai Mississippi.

Pada waktu Perang Saudara Amerika pecah pada tahun 1860, Mark pindah ke daerah barat yakni di California. Ketika itulah dia mengubah namanya menjadi "Mark Twain" yang berarti "dua depa dalamnya". Itu adalah istilah yang dipakai oleh awak kapal sungai bilamana mereka mengukur dalamnya air.

Novel-novel Mark Twain yang paling terkenal adalah The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, dan The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Kedua buku ini masing-masing menceritakan anak-anak berusia belasan tahun yang sedang tumbuh. Pengalaman-pengalaman mereka yang mengasyikkan itu menggambarkan kehidupan di tengah abad kesembilanbelas, dan menceritakan tentang pertentangan-pertentanganyang timbul antara orang muda dan orang dewasa. Seperti kebanyakan dari penulisan Twain, buku-buku ini penuh humor pula. Semakin umurnya bertambah, penulisannya semakin serius. Mark Twain meninggal pada tahun 1910.

[sunting] Pranala luar
Wikimedia Commons memiliki galeri mengenai:
Mark Twain
Wikisource
Wikisource bahasa Inggris mempunyai halaman mengenai
Mark Twain
Wikiquote memiliki koleksi kutipan yang berkaitan dengan:
Mark Twain

* (en) (en) Karya-karya Mark Twain di Proyek Gutenberg. Lebih dari 60 naskah tersedia secara bebas.
* (en) The Works of Mark Twain, Chapter-indexed, searchable versions of Twain's works
* (en) Complete Literary Works of Mark Twain
* (en) Mark Twain Quotes, Newspaper Collections and Related Resources
* (en) Twain on The Awful German Language
* (en) Complete text of No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger
* (en) Mark Twain mobile ebooks


Artikel mengenai biografi tokoh ini adalah suatu tulisan rintisan. Anda dapat

Dan Brown

Dan Brown
Dari Wikipedia Indonesia, ensiklopedia bebas berbahasa Indonesia.
Langsung ke: navigasi, cari

Dan Brown adalah seorang pengarang novel terkenal. Karyanya telah di cetak dan dialih bahasakan ke dalam 40 negara di dunia.

Dan Brown menjadi terkenal dan mendunia lantaran bukunya yang berjudul The Da Vinci Code (Kode Da Vinci). Dan Brown berhasil menyita perhatian banyak orang karena dalam bukunya tersebut ia menghadirkan sebuah kontroversi. Artis pemeran utama pria yang berperan sebagai Robert Langdon adalan Tom Hanks, aktor Perancis Jean Reno memerankan tokoh detektif polisi Bezu Fache. Film ini dirilis pada pertengahan tahun 2006 dan disutradari oleh Ron Howard.
Daftar isi
[sembunyikan]

* 1 Biografi
* 2 Bibliografi
* 3 Tuntutan atas Pelanggaran Hak Cipta
* 4 Pranala luar

[sunting] Biografi

Lahir di New Hampshire pada tanggal 22 Februari 1964, Dan Brown adalah lulusan dari Universitas Amherst dan Akademi Phillips Exeter. Sebelum menjadi penulis, ia pernah berprofesi sebagai guru bahasa Inggris. Saat ini Dan Brown bertempat tinggal di New England

[sunting] Bibliografi

Berikut ini adalah novel karya Dan Brown dalam urutan tahun diterbitkannya.

* 1997 Digital Fortress , edisi Bahasa Indonesia berjudul Benteng Digital
* 2000 Angels and Demons, edisi Bahasa Indonesia berjudul Malaikat dan Iblis
* 2001 Deception Point, edisi Bahasa Indonesia berjudul Titik Muslihat
* 2003 The Da Vinci Code
* The Solomon Key (direncanakan rilis pada 2006 atau 2007)

[sunting] Tuntutan atas Pelanggaran Hak Cipta

Dan Brown dan penerbit bukunya, Random House, dituntut oleh dua penulis Inggris, Michael Baigent dan Richard Leigh atas pelanggaran hak cipta terhadap buku mereka, The Holy Blood and Holy Grail. Brown memenangkan kasus ini.

[sunting] Pranala luar

* Situs resmi Dan Brown

Diperoleh dari "http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Brown"

Kategori: Novelis Amerika Serikat | The Da Vinci Code
Tampilan

* Artikel
* Pembicaraan
* Sunting
* ↑
* Versi terdahulu

Peralatan pribadi

* Masuk log / buat akun

Navigasi

* Halaman Utama
* Portal komunitas
* Peristiwa terkini
* Perubahan terbaru
* Halaman sembarang
* Bantuan
* Donasi
* Warung Kopi

Pencarian

Kotak peralatan

* Pranala balik
* Perubahan terkait
* Pemuatan
* Halaman istimewa
* Versi cetak
* Pranala permanen
* Kutip artikel ini
* Hapus singgahan
* Kontributor halaman
* Subhalaman
* Peta artikel

Bahasa lain

* Afrikaans
* العربية
* Žemaitėška
* Български
* Bosanski
* Català
* Česky
* Cymraeg
* Dansk
* Deutsch
* Ελληνικά
* English
* Esperanto
* Español
* فارسی
* Suomi
* Français
* Galego
* עברית
* Hrvatski
* Magyar
* Italiano
* 日本語
* ქართული
* 한국어
* Latina
* Lëtzebuergesch
* Lietuvių
* Македонски
* മലയാളം
* Nederlands
* ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬
* ‪Norsk (bokmål)‬
* Polski
* Português
* Română
* Русский
* Simple English
* Slovenčina
* Slovenščina
* Shqip
* Српски / Srpski
* Svenska
* ไทย
* Tagalog
* Türkçe
* Tiếng Việt
* 中文

charles dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 Februari 1812 - London, 9 Juni 1870), adalah seorang penulis roman atau novel ternama dari Inggris dari masa pemerintahan Ratu Victoria dari Britania Raya.

Dickens bahkan sampai sekarang masih populer dan semua bukunya masih bisa dibeli. Banyak dari buku-buku juga sudah dibuat menjadi film. Sepanjang karirnya Dickens mencapai popularitas mendunia, mendapatkan reputasi untuk cara menulis cerita yang sangat baik dan untuk tokoh-tokoh ceritanya. Ia dianggap sebagai salah satu penulis Inggris yang paling penting. Dia adalah novelis yang paling terkenal dan terbaik di era Victorian dan juga seseorang yang aktif melakukan perkerjaan sosial.

Kepopularitasan novel-novel dan cerita-cerita pendek selama masa hidupnya sampai hari ini bisa terbukti dari fakta bahwa penerbitnya tidak pernah kehabisan semua itu. Semasa hidupnya, Dickens menulis novel dengan beberapa serial, sebuah teknik yang umum dipakai untuk menulis fiksi pada waktu itu. Setiap bagian dari cerita yang ditulis Dickens sangat diharap-harapkan oleh publik yang membaca ceritanya.
Daftar isi
[sembunyikan]

* 1 Masa Hidup
* 2 Kehidupan Cinta
* 3 Karya utama
* 4 Karya lainnya
* 5 Cerpen
* 6 Pranala luar

[sunting] Masa Hidup

Charles Dickens lahir di Landport, dekat Portsmouth, Hampshire, pada tanggal 7 Februari 1812. Ia adalah anak kedua dari John Dickens (1786-1851) dan Elizabeth Dickens née Barrow (1789–1863). Pada waktu dia umur lima, keluarganya pindah ke Catham, Kent. Pada umur sepuluh, keluarganya berelokasi ke 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town di London. Ia adalah seorang penulis reformis (penulis yang menulis tentang hal-hal buruk untuk mengubah keadaan masyarakat menjadi lebih baik).

Ayah Dickens bekerja di kantor yang mengurusi gaji angkatan laut. Meskipun berpenghasilan baik, namun ketidakmampuan mengatur pengeluaran mengantarkannya ke penjara Marshalsea. Ketika nenek dari ayahnya meninggal, uang warisan yang diperoleh digunakan untuk membayar hutang. Ayahnya dibebaskan dari penjara setahun kemudian, dan Dickens pun berhenti bekerja.

Meskipun mengalami kesulitan finansial, orang tua Dickens sempat menyisihkan sebagian uang untuk mengirim salah seorang anak mereka bersekolah. Mereka memilih seorang anak yang mereka anggap paling berbakat, dan menaruh seluruh harapan padanya. Tapi yang terpilih bukan Dickens, melainkan saudara perempuannya, Fanny, yang berbakat di bidang musik. Ia dikirim ke akademi tidak lama sebelum ayahnya dipenjara. Namun awal tahun 1827, Dickens berkesempatan bersekolah di Wellington House Academy. Di bulan Mei, ia mendapatkan posisi di firma hukum Ellis and Blackmore berkat koneksi ibunya, yang memaksanya berhenti sekolah. November 1828, ia pindah ke firma hukum Charles Molley, masih dengan posisi yang sama namun hanya bertahan selama lima bulan, karena merasa hukum bukan karir yang cocok untuknya.

Pekerjaan berikut adalah petugas steno pengadilan, pada tahun 1829. Sebelumnya, ia harus lebih dahulu mempelajari sistem Gurney untuk menulis cepat, yang dikuasainya dengan mudah berkat ingatan kuatnya. Selama masa ini, sesungguhnya ia berkesempatan menjadi seorang aktor. Dia bahkan hendak mengikuti audisi untuk Lyceum Theater, namun ia jatuh sakit. Di usia 18 tahun, Dickens kerap tampil membacakan karya-karya William Shakespeare, History of England oleh Goldsmith, juga Short Account of The Roman Senate karya Berger.

Dickens lalu menjadi reporter untuk True Sun (1830-1832), Mirror of Parliament (1832-1834), dan The Morning Chronicle (1834-1836). Dickens dikenal sebagai reporter yang akurat dan cepat.

Tahun 1833, karir sebagai penulis fiksi dimulai melalui cerita-cerita pendek dan esei. Esei pertamanya yang dipublikasikan adalah A Dinner at Poplar Walk, pada Desember 1833 di Monthly Magazine.

Sketches By Boz diterbitkan dalam bentuk buku pada tahun 1936, dengan ilustrasi oleh George Cruikshank. Selanjutnya, The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club atau The Pickwick Papers diterbitkan secara bulanan dari April 1836 hingga November 1837. Selama masa awal perilisan The Pickwick Papers, Dickens berhenti sebagai reporter surat kabar untuk menjadi editor majalah bulanan Bentley’s Miscellany. Oliver Twist adalah karya pertamanya yang diterbitkan secara berseri di Bentley’s Miscellany pada tahun 1837. Dickens dikenal sebagai seorang penulis yang sangat produktif. Bahkan sebelum Oliver Twist berakhir, Dickens sudah mulai menerbitkan Nicholas Nickleby secara bulanan pada tahun 1838. Dilanjutkan dengan The Old Curiosity Shop dan Barnaby Rudge di tahun yang sama, 1841.

Setelah merilis catatan perjalanan ke Amerika Serikat dalam American Notes (1842); tahun 1843, A Christmas Carol diterbitkan. Menyusul Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844), The Chimes (1845), The Cricket on The Heart (1846), dan Dombey and Son (1846-1848).

Tahun 1850, Dickens mendirikan sebuah jurnal mingguan bernama Household Words yang memuat karya-karyanya, yaitu A Child's History of England (1851-1853), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), dan Great Expectations (1860-1861). Di samping itu, Dickens juga menulis antara lain David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Little Dorrit (1855-1857), dan Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865).

Namun selama periode ini, Dickens dirundung kemalangan. Pada tahun 1850, ayah Dickens meninggal dunia. Di tahun yang sama, anak kesembilan Dickens, Dora, meninggal setelah delapan bulan dilahirkan. Kemudian pada tahun 1863, ibunda Dickens wafat. Setahun kemudian, anak keempatnya, Walter, meninggal dunia di India, meninggalkan banyak hutang. Ia juga bermasalah dalam pernikahannya yang berujung pada perceraian pada tahun 1858.

Di tahun perceraiannya, Dickens banyak terlibat dalam pertunjukkan pembacaan karya-karya sastra. Tidak hanya menulis, ia juga ikut membacakan, memberinya kesempatan mengekspresikan kecintaannya pada dunia panggung. Ia tampil di lebih dari 400 kali. Pertunjukan ini membuatnya kelelahan dan sakit; sehingga saat kesehatannya jauh menurun, ia dilarang tampil kembali oleh dokter.

Di tengah kesehatannya yang terus memburuk, pada tahun 1869, ia mulai menulis The Mistery of Edwin Drood yang mulai diterbitkan tahun 1870. Kemudian, tanggal 9 Juni, Dickens meninggal dunia secara tiba-tiba di Gad’s Hill Place, rumah impiannya sejak kecil yang dibelinya pada tahun 1856, dan dimakamkan di Westminser Abbey. The Mistery of Edwin Drood adalah karya terakhirnya yang tidak selesai ditulis.

[sunting] Kehidupan Cinta

Kesuksesan Dickens dalam menulis setelah perilisan The Pickwick Papers diiringi dengan pernikahan yang dilangsungkan pada April 1836 dengan Catherine Hogarth, adik kandung George Hogarth, editor The Morning Chronicle; setelah melalui masa satu tahun pertunangan, dan dua tahun setelah pertemuan pertama mereka. Tiga tahun sebelumnya, ia berpisah dengan cinta pertamanya, Maria Beadnell, yang pertama kali dikenalnya pada tahun 1930. Maria adalah inspirasi Dickens bagi tokoh Dora, istri pertama David Copperfield.

Namun, sebagian pengamat berpendapat bahwa inspirasi Dickens untuk tokoh Dora adalah Mary Hogarth, adik Catherine yang tinggal bersama mereka dan meninggal di lengan Dickens pada usia 17 tahun. Dickens diduga lebih mencintai Mary; ia bahkan meminta dimakamkan di samping Mary, dan selalu memakai cincinnya hingga ia meninggal. Dickens juga diduga jatuh cinta pada saudari Catherine yang lain, yaitu Georgina Hogarth, yang tinggal bersama mereka pada tahun 1842 dan membantu mengurus rumah tangga mereka.

Ketika Dickens sedang dirundung masalah dalam pernikahannya, pada tahun 1857, Dickens bertemu dengan Ellen Ternan, yang kemudian mendampinginya hingga akhir hidupnya. Ellen, beserta ibu dan kakak perempuannya, terlibat dalam sebuah produksi drama komersil yang disponsori oleh Dickens. Dickens bercerai dengan istrinya pada Juni 1858, namun Dickens tidak pernah menikahi Ellen Ternan.

[sunting] Karya utama

* The Pickwick Papers (1836)
* Oliver Twist (1837–1839)
* Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839)
* The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841)
* Barnaby Rudge (1841)
* Buku-buku tentang Natal:
o A Christmas Carol (1843)
o The Chimes (1844)
o The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
o The Battle of Life (1846)
* Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)
* Dombey and Son (1846–1848)
* David Copperfield (1849–1850)
* Bleak House (1852–1853)
* Hard Times (1854)
* Little Dorrit (1855–1857)
* A Tale of Two Cities (11 Juli 1859)
* Great Expectations (1860–1861)
* Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865)
* The Mystery of Edwin Drood (belum selesai) (1870)

[sunting] Karya lainnya

* Sketches by Boz (1836)
* American Notes (1842)
* A Child’s History of England (1851–1853)

[sunting] Cerpen

* “A Christmas Tree”
* “A Message from the Sea”
* “Doctor Marigold”
* “George Silverman’s Explanation”
* “Going into Society”
* “Holiday Romance”
* “Hunted Down”
* “Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy”
* “Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings”
* “Mugby Junction”
* “Perils of Certain English Prisoners”
* “Somebody’s Luggage”
* “Sunday Under Three Heads”
* “The Child’s Story”
* “The Haunted House”
* “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain”
* “The Holly-Tree”
* “The Lamplighter”
* “The Seven Poor Travellers”
* “The Trial for Murder”
* “Tom Tiddler’s Ground”
* “What Christmas Is As We Grow Older”
* “Wreck of the Golden Mary”

[sunting] Pranala luar

* (en) Charles Dickens di Wikipedia (SumberWiki)
* (en) Karya-karya Charles Dickens di Wikisource (SumberWiki)

Wikiquote memiliki koleksi kutipan yang berkaitan dengan:
Charles Dickens

* (en) Karya-karya di Project Gutenberg
* (en) A Dickens web page with both original content and links to many other Dickens pages.
* (en) Dickens’ Characters some of the estimated 989 characters in Dickens.
* (en) A genealogical tree of the Dickens family
* (en) Dickens Literature — Chapter-indexed, searchable versions of Dickens’ works.
* (en) The Signatures of Charles Dickens
* (en) Charles Dickens easy to read HTML format of Dickens books.
* (en) Dickens Museum Situated in a former Dickens House, 48 Doughty St., London, W.C.1.
* (en) Dickens Birthplace Museum Old Commecial Road, Portsmouth
* (en) Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens by G. K. Chesterton
* (en) Charles Dickens — Gad’s Hill Place Daily Dickens quote, information about his life, work and more!
* (en) Charles Dickens's Themes An analysis of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, explaining its themes and allusions, and offering a solution to its mysteries, including the identity of Datchery and Jasper's split personality.
* (en) International Dickens Festival Annually, Riverside dedicates 3 days to Charles Dickens
* (en) Charles Dickens (1812-1870
* (en) Dickens or Bulwer-Lytton? Take this quiz to see if you can tell the best writer from the worst one

Emily Bronte

Emily Jane Brontë /bɹɑnti/ (30 Juli 1818 – 19 Desember 1848) adalah seorang novelis dan penyair Inggris, paling dikenal atas novel satu-satunya Wuthering Heights, sebuah karya klasik sastra Inggris.
Nama samaran: Ellis Bell
Lahir: 30 Juli 1818
Thornton, Yorkshire, Inggris
Meninggal: 19 Desember 1848
Pekerjaan: Novelis, penyair
Kebangsaan: Inggris
Adi karya: Wuthering Heights

W.Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (dibaptis 26 April 1564 - 23 April menurut tarikh Kalender Julian atau 3 Mei 1616 menurut tarikh Kalender Gregorian) seringkali disebut orang sebagai salah satu sastrawan terbesar Inggris. Ia menulis tragedi dan komedi berkualitas tinggi. Ia menulis antara tahun 1585 and 1613.
Daftar isi
[sembunyikan]

* 1 Kehidupan
* 2 Daftar karya
o 2.1 Tragedi
o 2.2 Komedi
o 2.3 Sejarah
o 2.4 Puisi
* 3 Pranala luar

[sunting] Kehidupan

Shakespeare lahir di Stratford-upon-Avon, Inggris, pada bulan April 1564, sebagai putra John Shakespeare dan Mary Arden. Ayah William cukup kaya ketika ia lahir namun kemudian ia menjadi agak miskin setelah menjual wol secara ilegal.

Shakespeare menikahi Anne Hathaway, yang delapan tahun lebih tua daripadanya, pada tanggal 28 November 1582 di Temple Grafton, dekat Stratford. Anne kala itu hamil tiga bulan. Bersama-sama mereka dikaruniai tiga anak: Susanna, Hamnet dan Judith.

Pada tahun 1596 Hamnet meninggal dunia. Karena kemiripan nama, banyak orang berpikir bahwa hal ini mengilhaminya untuk menulis The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

Shakespeare berhenti menulis pada tahun 1611 dan meninggal dunia beberapa tahun kemudian pada 1616. Sampai wafatnya ia tetap menikah dengan Anne. Pada batu nisannya tertulis: "Blest be the man who cast these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones." (bahasa Indonesia: "Terbekatilah ia yang menaruh batu-batu ini, dan terkutuklah ia yang memindahkan tulang-tulangku.")

[sunting] Daftar karya

[sunting] Tragedi

* Romeo and Juliet
* Macbeth
* King Lear
* Hamlet
* Othello
* Titus Andronicus
* Julius Caesar
* Antony and Cleopatra
* Coriolanus
* Troilus and Cressida
* Timon of Athens

[sunting] Komedi

* The Comedy of Errors
* All's Well That Ends Well
* As You Like It
* A Midsummer Night's Dream
* Much Ado About Nothing
* Measure for Measure
* The Tempest
* Taming of the Shrew
* Twelfth Night, or What You Will
* The Merchant of Venice
* The Merry Wives of Windsor
* Love's Labour's Lost
* The Two Gentlemen of Verona
* Pericles Prince of Tyre
* Cymbeline
* The Winter's Tale

[sunting] Sejarah

* Richard III
* Richard II
* Henry VI, part 1
* Henry VI, part 2
* Henry VI, part 3
* Henry V
* Henry IV, part 1
* Henry IV, part 2
* Henry VIII
* King John

[sunting] Puisi

* Shakespeare's Sonnets
* Venus and Adonis
* The Rape of Lucrece
* The Passionate Pilgrim
* The Phoenix and the Turtle
* A Lover's Complaint

Ahmad Tohari

Ahmad Tohari, (lahir di Tinggarjaya, Jatilawang, Banyumas, Jawa Tengah, 13 Juni 1948) adalah sastrawan Indonesia. Ia menamatkan SMA di Purwokerto. Namun demikian, ia pernah mengenyam bangku kuliah, yakni Fakultas Ilmu Kedokteran Ibnu Khaldun, Jakarta (1967-1970), Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Sudirman, Purwokerto (1974-1975), dan Fakultas Sosial Politik Universitas Sudirman (1975-1976).

Ia pernah bekerja di majalah terbitan BNI 46, Keluarga, dan Amanah. Ia mengikuti International Writing Program di Iowa City, Amerika Serikat (1990) dan menerima Hadiah Sastra ASEAN (1995).

[sunting] Karyanya

* Kubah (novel, 1980)
* Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (novel, 1982)
* Lintang Kemukus Dini Hari (novel, 1985)
* Jantera Bianglala (novel, 1986)
* Di Kaki Bukit Cibalak (novel, 1986)
* Senyum Karyamin (kumpulan cerpen, 1989)
* Bekisar Merah (novel, 1993)
* Lingkar Tanah Lingkar Air (novel, 1995)
* Nyanyian Malam (kumpulan cerpen, 2000)
* Belantik (novel, 2001)
* Orang Orang Proyek (novel, 2002)
* Rusmi Ingin Pulang (kumpulan cerpen, 2004)

Karya-karya Ahmad Tohari telah diterbitkan dalam bahasa Jepang, Tionghoa, Belanda dan Jerman. Edisi bahasa Inggrisnya sedang disiapkan penerbitannya.

Harry Roesli

Nama:
Harry Roesli
Nama Lengkap
Djauhar Zahrsyah Fachrudin Roesli
Lahir :
Bandung, 10 September 1951
Meninggal:
Jakarta, 11 Desember 2004
Agama :
Islam
Isteri:
Kania Perdani Handiman (Menikah 1981)
Anak:
Layala Khrisna Patria dan Lahami Khrisna Parana (Kembar, lahir 1982)
Ayah:
Mayjen (pur) Roeshan Roesli

Pendidikan:
= Jurusan Sipil ITB Bandung, sampai tingkat IV (1970-1975)
= Jurusan Komposisi LPKJ kini IKJ (1975-1977)
= Jurusan musik elektronik di Rotterdam Conservatorium, Negeri Belanda (1977-1981)

Karir :
= Pemain musik dan Pencipta lagu
= Pendiri dan pemain grup musik ''Gang of Harry Roesli'' bersama Albert Warnerin, Indra Rivai, dan Iwan A Rachman (1971-1975)
= Pendiri grup teater Ken Arok (1973-1977)
= Guru besar psikologi musik Universitas Pendidikan (UPI), Bandung dan Universitas Pasundan, Bandung
= Pimpinan Depot Kreasi Seni Bandung (DKSB)

Karya:
= Musik Rumah Sakit (1979 di Bandung dan 1980 di Jakarta)
= Parenthese
= Musik Sikat Gigi (1982 di Jakarta)
= Opera Ikan Asin
= Opera Kecoa

Alamat Rumah :
Jalan W.R. Soepratman 57, Bandung

Sumber:
Berbagai sumber, di antaranya PDAT



Harry Roesli (1951-2004)
Doktor Musik Kontemporer


Profesor psikologi musik ini bukan musisi biasa. Dia melahirkan fenomena budaya musik kontemporer yang berbeda, komunikatif dan konsisten memancarkan kritik sosial. Doktor musik bernama lengkap Djauhar Zaharsyah Fachrudin Roesli yang lebih dikenal dengan Harry Roesli dan dipanggil Kang Harry, ini meninggal dunia Sabtu 11 Desember 2004, pukul 19.55 di RS Harapan Kita Jakarta.

Musikus mbeling kelahiran Bandung, 10 September 1951 itu meninggal dunia dalam usia 53 tahun setelah menjalani perawatan jantung di rumah sakit tersebut sejak Jumat 3 Desember 2004. Kang Harry menderita serangan jantung juga hipertensi dan diabetes. Jenazah disemayamkan di rumah kakaknya, Ratwini Soemarso, Jl Besuki 10 Menteng, Jakarta Pusat dan dimakamkan 12 Desember 2004 di pemakaman keluarga di Ciomas, Bogor, Jabar.

Cucu pujangga besar Marah Roesli ini meninggalkan seorang isteri Kania Perdani Handiman dan dua anak kembar Layala Khrisna Patria dan Lahami Khrisna Parana. Pemusik bertubuh tambun ini melahirkan fenomena budaya musik populer yang tumbuh berbeda dengan sejumlah penggiat musik kontemporer lainnya. Dia mampu secara kreatif melahirkan dan menyajikan kesenian secara komunikatif. Karya- karyanya konsisten memunculkan kritik sosial secara lugas dalam watak musik teater lenong.

Doktor musik alumni Rotterdam Conservatorium, Belanda (1981), ini terbilang sangat sibuk. Selain tetap berkreasi melahirkan karya-karya musik dan teater, juga aktif mengajar di Jurusan Seni Musik di beberapa perguruan tinggi seperti Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) Bandung dan Universitas Pasundan Bandung.

Seniman yang berpenampilan khas, berkumis, bercambang, berjanggut lebat, berambut gondrong dan berpakaian serba hitam, ini juga aktif menulis di berbagai media. Pria ini juga kerap bikin aransemen musik untuk teater, sinetron dan film, di antaranya untuk kelompok Teater Mandiri dan Teater Koma. Juga menjadi pembicara dalam seminar-seminar di berbagai kota di Indonesia dan luar negeri.

Dan yang paling menyibukkan adalah aktivitas pemusik yang dikenal berselera humor tinggi, ini adalah membina para seniman jalanan dan kaum pemulung di Bandung lewat Depot Kreasi Seni Bandung (DKSB) yang didirikannya. Bahkan pria bersahaja dan dermawan ini sering terlibat dalam berbagai aksi dan advokasi ketidakadilan.

Putera bungsu Mayjen (pur) Roeshan Roesli dari empat bersaudara, ini menjadikan rumahnya di Jl WR Supratman 57 Bandung, sekaligus markas DKSB. Markas ini nyaris tak pernah sepi dari kegiatan para seniman jalanan dan ‘kaum tertindas’. Selain itu, dia juga kerap melahirkan karya-karya yang sarat kritik sosial dan bahkan bernuansa pemberontakan terhadap kekuasaan diktator dan korup. Maka tak heran bila kegiatannya di markas ini atau di mana saja tak pernah lepas dari pengawasan aparat.

Saat bergulirnya reformasi Mei 1998 untuk menggulingkan rezim Soeharto, Kang Harry bahkan berada ikut di barisan depan. Pada masa Orde Baru, tak jarang pementasan musik dan teater keponakan mantan Presiden BJ Habibie, ini dicekal aparat keamanan. Bahkan, setelah reformasi, saat pemerintahan BJ Habibie, salah satu karyanya yang dikemas 24 jam nonstop juga nyaris tidak bisa dipentaskan. Juga pada awal pemerintahan Megawati, dia sempat diperiksa Polda Metro Jaya gara-gara memelesetkan lagu wajib Garuda Pancasila.

Dia berbeda dari kakaknya (Ratwini, Utami, dan Rully) yang ketiga-tiganya jadi dokter spesialis. Dari masa belia dia tidak bercita-cita jadi dokter seperti ketiga kakaknya yang mengikuti jejak ibunya yang dokter spesialis anak. Harry bercita-cita jadi insinyur. Dia pun sempat kuliah di Jurusan Teknik Sipil ITB Bandung. Namun hanya sampai tingkat IV, karena dia merasa lebih menjiwai musik.

Namun ayahnya, pada mulanya menyatakan tidak setuju. Salah satu alasan ayahnya, karena anak-anak band itu tukang mabuk-mabukan. Tapi Harry berpandangan lain. Begitu pula ibu dan ketiga kakaknya, mendukung Harry. Bahkan, Sang Ibu memberi pengertian kepada Sang Ayah: "Biarkan Harry jadi dokter musik." Akhirnya ayahnya pun mengizinkan, asal tak dikomersialkan.

Pernyataan Sang Ibu itu memberi dorongan semangat tersendiri bagi Harry. Dia pun belajar dan berkarya dengan sungguh-sungguh dan kreatif. Sampai dia benar-benar menjadi doktor musik dari Rotterdam Conservatorium, selesai 1981. Dia juga aktif di Departemen Musik Institut Kesenian Jakarta (IKJ).

Begitu pula syarat yang dinyatakan Sang Ayah, jangan komersial, memandu kreativitasnya melahirkan karya-karya musik dan teater yang eksperimental. Karya musik dan teater yang tak akrab komersial alias tak laku dijual, tapi terkenal dan menjadi bahan kajian di berbagai universitas mancanegara, seperti di Jepang, Eropa dan Amerika.

Profesor psikologi musik ini bukan musisi biasa. Kehidupan yang sesunguhnya baginya adalah seni musik. Kehidupannya adalah kegiatan musik, mulai dari perkusi, band, rekaman musik, dan lain-lain. Dalam bermain musik, dia pun memakai peralatan yang unik. Seperti gitar, drum, gong, botol, kaleng rombeng, pecahan beling dan kliningan kecil.

Pada awal 1970-an, namanya sudah mulai melambung. Saat membentuk kelompok musik Gang of Harry Roesli bersama Albert Warnerin, Indra Rivai dan Iwan A Rachman. Lima tahun kemudian (1975) kelompok musik ini bubar karena para pemainnya menikah dan Harry sendiri belajar ke Belanda.

Di tengah kesibukannya bermain band, dia pun mendirikan kelompok teater Ken Arok 1973. Setelah melakukan beberapa kali pementasan, antara lain, Opera Ken Arok di TIM Jakarta pada Agustus 1975, grup teater ini bubar, karena Harry mendapat beasiswa dari Ministerie Cultuur, Recreatie en Maatschapelijk Werk (CRM), belajar ke Rotterdam Conservatorium, Negeri Belanda.

Selama belajar di negeri kincir angin itu, Harry juga aktif bermain piano di restoran-restoran Indonesia dan main band dengan anak-anak keturunan Ambon di sana. Selain untuk menyalurkan talenta musiknya sekaligus untuk memenuhi kebutuhan sehari-harinya yang tidak mencukupi dari beasiswa.

Suatu ketika cucu pengarang roman Siti Nurbaya, Marah Roesli, ini pulang liburan. Dia pun memanfaatkan kesempatan itu untuk menikah dengan kekasihnya, Kania Perdani Handiman, yang kemudian diboyongnya ke Balanda. Pernikahan itu, melahirkan buah hati anak lelaki kembar pada 1982.

Sekembalinya ke tanah air, sejak tahun 1983, dia menggarap musik untuk hampir semua produksi Teater Mandiri dan Teater Koma sejak produksinya bertajuk Opera Ikan Asin. ►e-ti/tsl


*** TokohIndonesia DotCom (Ensiklopedi Tokoh Indonesia)