Inspired Pen — A Literary Life

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954), novelist and short story writer, was best-known for her lyrical prose novels that focus on sensual romantic attachments. Simply known as ‘Colette’ in the literary world, she was born on January 28 in the small town of Saint-Sauveur en Prisaye.

When she was 22, she married a journalist known as “Willy”. The story was that his novels were ghostwritten by a tirade of hack writers, and Colette became one. As Willy recognized Colette’s talent he locked her in a room for some hours a day to make her write her memoirs, a scheme that resulted with four successful novels called “Claudine”. Not surprising, her husband published them under his name, at the same time, pocketed all the profits. Eventually, Colette divorced Willy in 1910.

Colette supported herself by dancing in Paris music halls. It was her experiences that inspired her sensuous novels, including Vagabond, 1912. She also remarried the same year, to a wealthy newspaper editor Henry de Jouvenal.

In 1929, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette claimed her reputation as an author, with her novel Chéri.  In real life, her Chéri was Maurice Goudeket, 17 years younger than her who she had a long affair with. They eventually married after she divorced de Jouvenal.

Her most famous novel, Gigi, was made into a successful American musical film in 1958 directed by Vincente Minnelli. She wrote Gigi when she was already 71.    

~Marguerite Duras, French Writer~ 

Margaret Duras (1914-1996), was a famous and great woman novelist, screenwriter and playwright of France during the late 20^th century. She is born today, April 4, in Gia Dinh, Indo-China, now Vietnam.  

Duras studied law and political science at the Sorbonne in Paris. During the Second World War, she took part in the Resistance with much risk to herself.

Her novels include her successful The Sea Wall (translated, 1952, Un Barrage contre le Pacifique, 1951), The Vice Consul, 1968, Le Vice-Consul, 1966), Hiroshima, Mon Amour, 1959, among others. Her L’Amant, 1984, (The Lover, 1985) won the Prix Goncourt. Her last book was That’s All, 1995 (C’est tout).  

Duras also wrote scripts for films such as Hiroshima, My Love, 1960, from her Hiroshima, Mon Amour, as well as plays, including The Music, 1966 (La Musica, 1965).     

~Emile Zola, French Writer~

Émile Zola (1840-1902), was a prominent French novelist, journalist and critic born on April 2 in Paris, France.

He was an influential writer, the leader and important exemplar of the literary naturalism school, which is significant to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was also a major figure in the political liberalization of France.

His novels, dealing with the working class life, include Thérèse Raquin (1867), Nana (1880), Germinal (1885), and Le Docteur Pascal (1893), among others. Most of his writings were published under the collective title of Les Rougon-Macquart.

Zola was well-known for writing the letter “J’accuse” in 1898, in support of an army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who was falsely accused and convicted Dreyfus. Here is a quote from that letter:

“The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight!”  

~Hans Christian Andersen, 1869~

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), Danish author of many fairy tales, is born on April 2, in Odense, Denmark. Coming from a poor family, the young Hans has to seek work as a tailor and weaver to fend for himself.  He is especially famous for “The Ugly Duckling.” Other notable fairy tales include “The Little Mermaid,” “Thumbelina,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes, “The Little Match Girl” and “The Constant Tin Soldier.”

Originally written in Danish, his books were translated into English published as Wonderful Stories for Children by Mary Howitt in 1846. It is mainly due to his fairy tales that Hans Christian Andersen is popular to this day. His stories form a part of children’s introduction and stimulation to reading. They are published all over the world and have been translated into over 150 languages.

Andersen traveled throughout Europe and from this extensive travels, he produced a volume of travelogues; he also wrote poetry. In 1835, his first novel, The Impovisatore, was published and it claimed success. From here on, he began to write his famous “Fairy Tales” that include sketches.

~Leonard Bloomfield, U.S. Linguist~

American linguist Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) is born today, April 1, in Chicago, Illinois. When he was nine years old, his family moved to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin and he attended his elementary school there. However, he returned to Chicago for his secondary education. His uncle, Maurice Bloomfield, was a prominent linguist at John Hopkins University. His aunt, Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler, was a well-known concert pianist.

He held several university posts, and later appointed Professor of German and Linguistics at Ohio State University (1921-27), became Professor of Germanic Philology at Chicago University (1927-1940), and Sterling Professor of Linguistics at Yale from 1940.

Bloomfield’s early interest was in Indo-European, especially Germanic, phonology and morphology. He made later studies of Malayo-Polynesian languages, especially Tagalog (the national language of the Philippines), and of the languages of native Americans, in particular, Cree and Minomini.

Bloomfield played a significant role in making linguistics an independent scientific discipline. His major works are Languages (1933), his masterpiece on linguistic theory which has become a standard text with a profound influence on linguistics, Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis (1917), Linguistic Aspects of Science (1939), Spoken Dutch (1945) and Spoken Russian (1945).

 ~Drama in Literature~

 We know that drama is a form of literature. However, do we know that it is pretty much tied to religion? In ancient times, it was a sort of ritual activities to ask the favour of the gods. Primitive drama was made up of choreographed movements. Therefore, it was like a dance, so different from the sophisticated drama that we know today.

The Western drama history has its significant conception at the time of the ancient Greeks. They were the ones who evolved a highly sophisticated literary form from drama’s ceremonial origins. They were usually performed as major events of national importance like annual festivals, in which the dramas or plays of such prominent writers as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides provided the foundation for much subsequent development.

It was at during the 5^th century B.C. that drama was divided into tragedy and comedy, a further development to the more religious-themed origins.  

Another remarkable period of the drama was in England during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and Kind James I. In the last few decades of the 16^th and 17^th century, such brilliant writers as Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and John Webster joined William Shakespeare in creating plays that we are enjoying now.