Winter 2019 Part 4

Great Authors

For thousands of years, literature has inspired human souls. They have educated us about a myriad of topics, and they have stirred up our creativity. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern books, we witness the power of literature on a daily basis. Ever since I was a child, I read books regularly. Now, I’m thirty-five years old, and I still read books all of the time. It is essential to study legendary writers when they have been involved in progressive change, many of them have focused on expressing many truths, and some have lived inspirational lives. One of the great books that I have read recently was the Official Guide to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture book. It had an overview of history, its graphics were amazing, and it focused on the truth that African American culture is very beautiful. Also, if anyone wants to read great literature, he or she should read stories from Maya Angelou. She was a legendary writer who eloquently described life among black Americans and life in general. She represented a gracious soul who was always willing to help out the younger generation. Maya Angelou was a heroic civil rights leader who was a close friend of both Malcolm X and Dr. King . He even travel into Africa to work with Malcolm X in helping form connections with African human beings. Her eloquence is amazing and she is a hero for the cause of human liberation. Now, she is with the ancestors, but her power eternally shines through forever and ever.

Literary concepts

There are tons of concepts in writing. These themes are so important to know because literature is never monolithic. It is part of the way in which stories are formed or devised. Symbolism in literature is when a symbol is used to represent something. It can be simplistic or complicated. Symbolism can be used to create meaning and emotion in a story. Writers use metaphors and allegories to help create symbolism in literary works. A metaphor used words like or as near them. An allegory is an extended allegory. An allegory can be an entire story, poem, or book with symbolism that deals with a literary piece. Alliteration is a term to outline a literary device that when a series of words begin with a consonant sound. Foreshadowing is a literary device in which a writer dives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. It can appear at the beginning of story, a chapter, and it helps the reader develop expectations about upcoming events. For example, one fictional story can outline the beginning of journey in the forest and gives clues about what would happen next. Giving non-human entities human characteristics is called personification. It is used to enhance meaning in poems and in other forms of literature.

Onomatopoeia is a poetic structure of words to show how something sounds. One example of onomatopoeia is a poem about a stream written in a way to initiate the sound of a stream. Literature can use a paraphrase or restating a statement in different words than the original text (while keeping the meaning and sense of the original source the same). Poetry is made up of stanzas or it can be one stanza. A  pentameter is a meter that means the iamb is repeated five times. So iambic pentameter is a line of poetry with five iambs. People can draw a row of five short lines on a piece of paper to create iambs. One iamb is one unstressed syllable and one stressed.  The term euphemism refers to polite, indirect expressions that replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite, or which suggest something unpleasant. A soliloquy is a super important monologue given by a character in a play who is alone on the stage. Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" speech is powerful example of a monologue.

Authors

Maya Angelou

Sister Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was definitely our voice. Her wisdom was immeasurable, and she was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She had a lifelong love affair with literature and education. Her words of wisdom motivated our consciousness and made us aware of the value of black women. Certainly, she lived a full life filled with interacting with some of the greatest black people as close friends and showing the literacy genius that she always has exhibited. Her story outlines the essence of the human value of black women and the resilient spirit of black people in general. She was born in the great city of St. Louis, Missouri and lived for 86 years on this Earth. Today, she is with the ancestors and now we certainly reflect on her awe-inspiring life as a courageous advocate for freedom and justice. She was active in the Civil Rights Movements by advising the SCLC. She was a friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Abbey Lincoln, and Billie Holiday. People should know about Sister Abbey Lincoln, because she was one of the greatest performers in our history. Maya Angelou spoke worldwide in the presence of students, Presidents, scholars, and just ordinary human beings, but she always was the same (in her powerful countenance) in the presence of diverse audiences. She never wavered in her commitment to liberation and she shown the world her light thoroughly. She always assisted the movements for social change and she always loved black people. We love her back. In this appreciation, we can never omit the information of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (which was her 1969 autobiography). Any lover of literature should have the chance to read that story. That book is iconic and shows how important social justice is. Her poem Phenomenal Woman outlines the majestic, pain, beauty, and resiliency of women in general. Now, we live near 2020. God is here and the ancestors are watching. It is certainly our responsibility to show the truth and to show our courage to live, to help our people, and to shine our light in favor of liberty.

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck received a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 at Sweden. His life has been about writing stories with imagination, wit, and power. John Ernst Steinbeck Sr. (1902-1968) wrote classics of American literature. He authored 27 book plus 16 novels. He is known for his short stories too. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) won the Pulitzer Prize as a masterpiece. Many of his works are taught at middle schools and high schools nationwide. He had many children. Salinas, California was the place of his birth. He had German, English, and Irish descent. His paternal grandfather was a German man named Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck (1828–1913), Steinbeck's paternal grandfather, shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. He saw the cruelty of some human beings which inspired to write the book Of Mice and Men. During the Great Depression, he relied on some foods, welfare, and other things to survive. The marine biologist and his friend Ed Ricketts mentored him about philosophy and biology. He wrote many fictional works. He wrote about history, migrant workers, and suffering families. In September 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Steinbeck Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was a hawk in support of the Vietnam War. Of course, I disagree with the Vietnam War. He passed away in New York City on December 20, 1968. He was 66 years old. He had heart disease. John Steinbeck gave voice to the suffering and the disposed. He reflected his knowledge of history, biology, religion, politics, and mythology. He inspired future writers to pursue their goals.

Toni Morrison

One living legend of writing is Sister Toni Morrison. She was born in February 18, 1931 and her legacy is enormous. She is an American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher and professor emeritus at Princeton University. Her book of Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988. It became a movie later on. Beloved described the experienced of African Americans during the 19th century. Also, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. In 1996, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. She was honored with the 1996 National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.  On May 29, 2012, President Barack Obama presented Morrison with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, she received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. She was born in Lorain, Ohio. Her family came from Alabama and Georgia. Her parents taught her about heritage and African American folktales plus ghost stories. They sang songs. Morrison read mightily as a child from works from Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy.

She enrolled at the historical HBCU Howard University and graduated with a B.A. in English and earned a Master of Arts from Cornell University in 1955. She is a lifelong teacher and she taught English at Texas Southern University in Houston for years. She inspired the next generation of African American authors like Toni Cade Bambara, Angela Davis, and Gayl Jones. She wrote Sula in 1973 which was about a friendship between two black women and the famous Song of Solomon (1977). She wrote the libretto for the opera of Margaret Garner which was completed by 2002. On November 17, 2017, Princeton University dedicated Morrison Hall (a building previously called West College) in her honor. She still writes. Her eleventh novel is called “God help the Child” which was published in 2015. The work is about Bride and whose mother tormented her for being dark-skinned. It exposes colorism as wrong. Bride is an executive in the fashion and beauty industry. Morrison has spoken out against police brutality, racism, and is a known social activist. She is always a humble black woman.

Sandra Cisneros


Sandra Cisneros is a Mexican-American writer who was born in Chicago on December 20, 1954. She has written about culture, economic inequality, and other issues. She is known for her short story collection. She has many awards and a key legend in Chicana literature. Her works fight against the oppression that Mexican Americans face and to refute the evil agenda of misogyny found in the world society. The House on Mango Street is a coming of age novel that depicts the honest lives of Latino communities. Sandra Cisneros worked as a teacher, a counselor, a college recruiter, a poet, and an arts administrator. She promotes art and literacy causes. In 1998, she established the Macondo Writers Workshop, which provides socially conscious workshops for writers, and in 2000 she founded the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation, which awards talented writers connected to Texas. Her paternal grandfather was a veteran of the Mexican Revolution. Cisneros was awarded a bachelor of arts degree from Loyola University Chicago in 1976, and received a master of fine arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. She used her own personal experiences and watching her community as a means to write her stories. Cisneros shaped Chicana and feminist literature. Bilingualism is found in her writings too. Cisneros was recognized by the State University of New York, receiving an honorary doctorate from Purchase in 1993 and a MacArthur fellowship in 1995. Sandra Cisneros continues to excite the imagination of human beings worldwide.

Gwendolyn Brooks

One of the greatest writers in history was Sister Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000). She worked diligently in poetry, books, education as a teacher, and being a social activist. Her works promoted resiliency and celebrated the lives of many people. She received the Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968. She was the first African American woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1976. She was born in Topeka, Kansas and by six weeks old, lived in Chicago. She was educated at the South side of Chicago as a child. Her mother encouraged her to write. Her mother said that she would be as great as Paul Laurence Dunbar. She loved Chicago. She published her first poem called “Eventide” when she was 13 years old. She wrote and published about 75 poems at the age of 16. James Weldon Johnson, Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes encouraged her to write more. The Chicago Defender shown her work and the Chicago Defense is an African American newspaper. Her portraits of life in Bronzeville in Chicago received critical acclaim. Her second book of poetry was called Annie Allen (1949) which dealt with the life of a young black girl in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. The book received the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. She taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, and other locations. She worked with many young black poets including her son’s fiancée Kathleen Hardiman. Her son is Henry Lowington Blakely III. She was involved in the civil rights and Black Power movements. Gwendolyn Brooks joined the NAACP Youth Council in 1937 to protest lynching and demanding justice for the Scottsboro Boys of Alabama. In 1967, the Organization of Black American Culture in Chicago featured Gwendolyn Brooks in its famed Wall of Respect mural, alongside W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Kwame Ture, Malcolm X and Nina Simone, symbolically inducting Brooks into a Black Power Hall of Fame. She fought apartheid as well. She defended the dignity and the human rights of the poor. Her long history shows the greatness of black writers.

Mark Twain


Mark Twain (1835-1910) was a lecturer, publisher, writer, and humorist. His name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He is famous for his novels of Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). He influenced greatly the development of the modern American novel. He was born in Florida, Missouri. He was so well known for his wit, that he became friends to Presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. He lectured the world. Mark Twain was of English and Scots-Irish descent. He wrote sketches to the Hannibal Journal. He was a printer too. Her married Olivia Langdon and also met abolitionists, socialists, and others like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and socialist William Dean Howells. Howells was his longtime friend. Mark Twain produced President Ulysses S. Grant’s Memoirs via his publishing house called Charles L. Webster and Company. He co-founded it with Charles L. Webster, who was his nephew by marriage. Twain’s political views changed as he gotten older. He was anti-imperialist after 1899. He supported the Boxers in the Boxer Rebellion. He criticized Cecil Rhodes’ British imperialist goals too. Mark Twain was a Freemason and had the degree of Master Mason on July 10, 1861. He passed away in Connecticut and is known for his extensive legacy.

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) only lived for 40 years, but his impact existed long after his death. He wrote fiction, short stories, and poems. His focus was on mystery and the macabre. Romanticism in America was influenced by him. He also made detective fiction stories which didn’t exist in a large way before him. He was born in Boston. Later, he lived in Richmond, Virginia. He was adopted by a family. He came into the University of Virginia. He traveled into Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City to establish a living for himself. He was controversial. His works include The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Oval Portrait and other stories. He passed away at the city of Baltimore on the date of October 7, 1849.

Richard Wright


Richard Wright (1908-1960) made America to see the viciousness of racial discrimination. His novels, poems, non-fiction, and short stories detailed African American life. He was born in Mississippi. His memoir named Black Boy detailed his life from 1912 to May of 1936. His parents were born free and his grandparents were slaves and freed after the Civil War. His paternal grandfather Nathan Wright (1842–1904) had served in the 28th United States Colored Troops; his maternal grandfather Richard Wilson (1847–1921) escaped from slavery in the South to serve in the US Navy as a Landsman in April 1865. He moved into Memphis at the age of 17 to study at Howe Institute. He came into Chicago with his family in joining the Great Migration. His childhood experiences in Mississippi, Elaine Arkansas, and Memphis influenced his writings. Richard Wright met Communists in Chicago. He chaired the south Side Writers Group with members like Arna Bontemps and Margaret Walker. He wrote essay and he edited the Left Front. He fell out with many Communists by being assaulted by former members at the 1936 May Day march, he was threatened at knife point by members, and he was being disrespected. He made new ties with new Communist leaders.  He worked on the Project guidebook to the city, New York Panorama (1938), and wrote the book's essay on Harlem. Wright became the Harlem editor of the Daily Worker, a Communist newspaper. He wrote Native Son. Wright opposed Stalin’s Great Purge in the Soviet Union, but believed in far left democratic solutions to political problems. He lived in France, worked in Africa, and passed away at the age of 52 on the date of November 28, 1960. He had a daughter named Julia.

Epilogue

When anyone studies or reads literature, excitement comes about. You can engage in new worlds or increase insights about the various issues of life. Literature motivates the soul because writing is part of the greatness of human expression. Religious books like the Torah and the New Testament, cuisine books, magazines, and other forms of prose are common place. With the Internet, digitized literature is more popular than ever. Some even listen to audiobooks on the move. Society constantly evolves rapidly. Today, we live in a new time. Likewise, we will continuously to take the time to analyze prose and appreciate its sacrosanct value.

Some good news is that Sister Tera Hunter, who is Princeton University professor, won two book awards from the American Historical Association. These awards are the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in women’s history and/or feminist theory as well as the Littleton-Griswold Prize in U.S. law and society from the American Historical Association. She wrote a book on the history of slavery in America. I congratulate her. So, literature represent one major part of the lifeblood of human civilization. We love it and cherish it wholeheartedly.

By Timothy