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Pablo Picasso
10 Things You Might Not Know About Pablo Picasso
1. Pablo Picasso, born in 1881, held the first exhibition of his work at the age of 13, in the back of an umbrella store. He grew up in an... Read more...
Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form
Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form
Helen Vendler is one of the most important literary critics in recent decades. This latest offering, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form, is the sort of book that one... Read more...
Between Mozart and Haydn: Lewis Lockwood on Ludwig van Beethoven's “Tormented Genius”
Between Mozart and Haydn: Lewis Lockwood on Ludwig van Beethoven's “Tormented Genius”
Few figures in Western music loom as large—or as mythologized—as Ludwig van Beethoven. A revolutionary force who reshaped the very language of composition, Beethoven’s life has become almost inseparable from... Read more...
10 Things You Might Not Know About W. B. Yeats
10 Things You Might Not Know About W. B. Yeats
1. William Butler Yeats (W. B. Yeats) was born on June 13, 1865, in Dublin, Ireland. His mother, Susan, who schooled young William, spent endless hours telling him tales of... Read more...
Sigmund Freud
10 Things You Might Not Know About Sigmund Freud
1. As a child, Sigmund Freud was a good student who, aside from his native German, was also proficient in French, Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. He loved... Read more...
10 Things You Might Not Know About Richard Wagner
10 Things You Might Not Know About Richard Wagner
1. Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883), the German composer, director, and conductor, did not take to music as a child. The fact that he did not take piano lessons, despite all... Read more...
Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln & Charles Darwin
Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln & Charles Darwin
Rebel Giants, David Contosta’s latest book, offers a timely examination of the lives of two men who transformed their world—and ours—in ways that are difficult to summarize adequately in a... Read more...
Karl Marx
10 Things You Might Not Know About Karl Marx
1. Karl Marx (1818-1883) was one of nine children born to Heinrich and Henrietta Marx. His parents raised him in Trier, a city that would eventually deny Marx citizenship for... Read more...