De Amerikaanse letterkundige en literatuurwetenschapper Wayne Clayton Booth werd geboren op 22 februari 1921 in American Fork, Utah. In 1944 studeerde hij af aan de Brigham Young University. Na zijn diensttijd gedurende WO II studeerde Booth Engels aan de University of Chicago waar hij later ook promoveerde. In 1962 werd hij hoogleraar, eerst aan het Haverford College, later aan de universiteit van Chicago. In 1961 publiceerde hij “The Rhetoric of Fiction”. Andere belangrijke werken van hem zijn “A Rhetoric of Irony” (1974) und “The Company We Keep” (1988). Van Booth stamt het concept van de impliciete auteur. Daarmee week hij af van de school van het New Criticism. Hij formuleerde ermee belangrijke grondslagen van de receptie-esthetica en van de verteltheorie. Ook het begrip „onbetrouwbare verteller“ stamt af van Booth.

Uit: The Essential Wayne Booth

„Even in works that are somewhat successful, there is almost always some shrinking from a fully responsible engagement with the inherent difficulties. For example, in Tender Is the Night, which is in many ways strikingly similar to Macbeth, Fitzgerald waters down the effect in several ways. Dick Diver, Fitzgerald’s “noble” man, is destroyed, but he is destroyed only to helplessness-to unpopularity and drunkenness and poverty; he becomes a “failure.” The signs of his destruction are never grotesque acts of cruelty or wickedness of the kind committed by Macbeth or of a kind which, for the modern reader, would be analogous in their unsympathetic quality. Rather, he speaks more sharply to people than he used to; he is no longer charming. This is indeed pitiful enough, in its own way, but it is easy enough, too, especially when the artist chooses, as Fitzgerald does, to report the final demoralization of the hero only vaguely and from a great distance: one never sees Dick Diver’s final horrible moments as one sees Macbeth’s. The result is that, at the end of his downward path, Diver has been more sinned against than sinning, and we have no obstacles to our pity. On the other hand, since the fall has not been nearly so great, our pity that the fall should have occurred at all is attenuated, compared with the awfulness of the last hours of Macbeth. Other attenuations follow from this one. If the fall is not a very great one, the forces needed to produce it need not be great (although one might argue that even in Tender Is the Night they should have been greater, for credibility). Nicole and a general atmosphere of gloom and decay are made to do a job which, in Macbeth, requires some of the richest degenerative forces ever employed.“

Wayne C. Booth (22 februari 1921 – 9 oktober 2005)

De Canadese schrijver Morley Callaghan werd geboren op 22 februari 1903 in Toronto. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2007.en ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2009.

Uit: They Shall Inherit the Earth

„In the early summer evening Andrew Aikenhead, of the firm of Hillquist and Aikenhead, had gone out seeking his son. He had crossed slowly through the traffic with an eager expression on his upturned florid face. He was there on the sidewalk in the crowd, in the way of the passing people, looking up at the rooming house where his son lived, and he was full of delight, as though he had at last taken a necessary step that would bring joy again into his life.
He went into the house, and when he stood in the hall and saw by the names on the wall that his son was on the third floor, he began to climb the red-carpeted stairs, puffing and sighing at every fifth step. On the second floor, where the light was brighter, he saw a small, neat man with such delicate features and such fair wavy hair parted in the middle that he looked like a pretty boy, except that his blue eyes were redrimmed and shrewd, and this man was tiptoeing along the hall carrying a basket of fruit in both hands. The light overhead shone on the bl
ue grapes, the yellow pears and the glossy peaches as he stooped and placed the basket of fruit on the carpet by the door of a room.
“Could you tell me where Michael Aikenhead lives?” Andrew Aikenhead asked.
“Mike Aikenhead,” the man said, straightening up and looking embarrassed. “Sure, I can tell you. Go on upstairs. The last room on the right at the back. He’s in there.” Andrew Aikenhead went on climbing the stairs again, while the fairhaired young man looked doubtfully at the basket of fruit he had placed like an offering outside that door.

In the little hall at the top, where there were onlytwo doors, Andrew Aikenhead coughed, and then he began to clear his throat like a man who is about to make an important speech and offers a few preliminary sounds as a friendly gesture. Then he stood still, looking at the brown-painted door while his heart fluttered strangely and there was a yearning in him that his son might remember and know his voice that had sounded so loud. And when he rapped and his son’s voice called carelessly, “Come in,” he was full of gladness; and as he opened the door he thought, “That’s a good omen. Things will go well.”

Morley Callaghan (22 februari 1903 – 25 augustus 1990)

De Ierse schrijver Sean O’Faolain werd geboren op 22 februari 1900 in Cork. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2009.

Uit: The Trout

“But she went back, pretending to be going somewhere else, and she found a hole scooped in the rock at the side of the walk, choked with damp leaves, so shrouded by ferns that she only uncovered it after much searching. At the back of this little cavern there was about a quart of water. In the water she suddenly perceived a panting trout. She rushed for Stephen and dragged him to see, and they were both so excited that they were no longer afraid of the darkness as they hunched down and peered in at the fish panting in his tiny prison, his silver stomach going up and down like an engine.

Nobody knew how the trout got there. Even Old Martin in the kitchen-garden laughed and refused to believe that it was there, or pretended not to believe, until she forced him to come down and see. Kneeling and pushing back his tattered old cap he peered in.

`Be cripes, you’re right. How the divil in hell did that fella get there?’

She stared at him suspiciously.

`You knew?’ she accused; but he said, `The divil a know;’ and reached down to lift it out.

Convinced she hauled him back. If she had found it then it was her trout.

Her mother suggested that a bird had carried the spawn. Her father thought that in the winter a small streamlet might have carried it down there as a baby, and it had been safe until the summer came and the water began to dry up. She said, `I see,’ and went back to look again and consider the matter in private. Her brother remained behind, wanting to hear the whole story of the trout, not really interested in the actual trout but much interested in the story which his mummy began to make up for him on the lines of, `So one day Daddy Trout and Mammy Trout . . . .’ When he retailed it to her she said, `Pooh.’

It troubled her that the trout was always in the same posi
tion; he had no room to turn; all the time the silver belly went up and down; otherwise he was motionless. She wondered what he ate and in between visits to Joey Pony, and the boat and a bathe to get cool, she thought of his hunger. She brought him down bits of dough; once she brought a worm. He ignored the food. He just went on panting. Hunched over him she thought how, all the winter, while she was at school he had been in there. All winter, in The Dark Walk, all day, all night, floating around alone. She drew the leaf of her hat down around her ears and chin and stared. She was still thinking of it as she lay in bed.“

Sean O’Faolain (22 februari 1900 – 20 april 1991)
Buste in de Cork City Library

De Franse schrijver Jules Renard werd geboren op 22 februari 1864 in Châlons-du-Maine. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2009.

Uit: Poil de Carotte

„- Il ne reste plus de melon pour toi, dit Madame Lepic ; d’ailleurs, tu es comme moi, tu ne l’aimes pas.
– Ca se trouve bien, se dit Poil de Carotte.
On lui impose ainsi ses goûts et ses dégoûts. En principe, il doit aimer seulement ce qu’aime sa mère. Quand arrice le fromage :
– Je suis bien sûre, dit Madame Lepic, que Poil de Carotte n’en mangera pas.
Et Poil de Carotte pense :
– Puisqu’elle en est sûre, ce n’est pas la peine d’essayer.
En outre, il sait que ce serait dangereux.
Et n’a-t-il pas le temps de satisfaire ses plus bizarres caprices dans des endroits connus de lui seul ? Au dessert, Madame Lepic lui dit :
– Va porter ses tranches de melons à tes lapins.
Poil de Carotte fait la commission au petit pas, en tenant l’assiette bien horizontale afin de ne rien renverser.
A son entrée sous leur toit, les lapins, coiffés en tapageur, les oreilles sur l’oreille, le nez en l’air, les pattes de devant raides comme s’ils allaient jouer du tambour, s’empressent autour de lui.
– Oh ! Attendez, dit Poil de Carotte ; un moment, s’il vous plaît, partageons.
S’étant assis d’abord sur un tas de crottes, de séneçon rongé jusqu’à la racine, de trognons de choux, de feuilles de mauves, il leur donne les graines de melon et boit le jus lui-même ; c’est doux comme du vin doux.
Puis il racle avec les dents ce que sa famille a laissé aux tranches de jaune sucré, tout ce qui peut fondre encore, et il passe le vert aux lapins en rond sur leur derrière.“

Jules Renard (22 februari 1864 – 22 mei 1910)
Monument in Chitry-les-Mines

De Amerikaanse dichter, essayist, uitgever en diplomaat James Russell Lowell werd geboren op 22 februari 1819 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2009.

My Love

Not as all other women are

Is she that to my soul is dear;

Her glorious fancies come from far,

Beneath the silver evening-star,

And yet her heart is ever near.

Great feelings hath she of her own,

Which lesser souls may never know;

God giveth them to her alone,

And sweet they are as any tone

Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.

Yet in herself she dwelleth not,

Although no home were half so fair;

No simplest duty is forgot,

Life hath no dim and lowly spot

That doth not in her sunshine share.

She doeth little kindnesses,

Which most leave undone, or despise:

For naught that sets one heart at ease,

And giveth happiness or peace,

Is low-esteemèd in her eyes.

She hath no scorn of common things,

And, though she seem of other birth,

Round us her heart entwines and clings,

And patiently she folds her wings

To tread the humble paths of earth.

Blessing she is: God made her so,

And deeds of week-day holiness

Fall from her noiseless as the snow,

Nor hath she ever chanced to know

That aught were easier than to bless.

She is most fair, and thereunto

Her life doth rightly harmonize;

Feeling or thought that was not true

Ne’er made less beautiful the blue

Unclouded heaven of her eyes.

She is a woman: one in whom

The springtime of her childish years

Hath never lost its fresh perfume,

Though knowing well that life hath room

For many blights and many tears.

I love her with a love as still

As a broad river’s peaceful might,

Which, by high tower and lowly mill,

Seems following its own wayward will,

And yet doth ever flow aright.

And, on its full, deep breast serene,

Like quiet isles my duties lie;

It flows around them and between,

And makes them fresh and fair and green,

Sweet homes wherein to live and die.

James Russell Lowell (22 februari 1819 – 12 augustus 1891)

De Amerikaanse dichteres en schrijfster Edna St. Vincent Millay werd geboren op 22 februari 1892 in Rockland, Maine. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2009.

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

Sorrow

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain, —
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (22 februari 1892 – 19 oktober 1950)

De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Ottilie Wildermuth werd geboren op 22 februari 1817 in Rottenburg am Neckar. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 februari 2009.

Klagst du leise, daß hienieden.

Klagst du leise, daß hienieden

Dir ein Frauenloos beschieden?

Neidest du des Mannes Streben

Und sein keckes, freies Leben?

Nimm das Beste dir zu eigen,

Was den rechten Mann kann zeigen!

Einen guten, reinen Willen,

Kraft und Muth, ihn zu erfüllen,

Feste Treue fort und fort,

Daß wie Gold dein schlichtes Wort;

Lust zu graben nach dem Quell

Edlen Wissens recht und hell;

Füg’ dazu in Ernst und Scherz

Warm und treu ein Frauenherz,

Liebevolles Frauensorgen,

Das da waltet still verborgen;

Ruhig heiteres Ergeben,

Was auch bringe dir das Leben:

Du und andre sinds dann wohl zufrieden

Daß nicht Mannesloos dir ward beschieden.

Ottilie Wildermuth (22 februari 1817 – 12 juli 1877)