Plutarch
Plutarch (c. 46-127 AD). Greek essayist and biographer. He travelled widely and held imperial office before finally settling down to an author’s life. Although he wrote on many subjects, he is best known for his Parallel Lives, a collection of biographies of Greek and Roman soldiers and statesmen. For his Roman plays Shakespeare used Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives; many words and phrases used by North can be detected in the verse of Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-49). US poet and short-story writer. Orphaned at two, he was brought up by a guardian. He left university at his guardian’s insistence because of his gambling debts. After publishing two collections of poetry, Poe turned increasingly to writing short stories. His macabre tales, many of which have been made into horror films, include ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and The Pit and the Pendulum’, and can be found in The Prose Romances (1843) and Tales (1845). His mental health declined as a result of his wife’s death and his heavy drinking; he died after a drinking session in Baltimore.
“There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was. It was a fine compliment. Jackson Pollock”
