The Classic of Poetry (traditional Chinese: 詩經; simplified Chinese: 诗经; pinyin: Shījīng; Wade-Giles: Shih-ching), translated variously as the Book of Songs, the Book of Odes, and often known simply as its original name The Odes (Chinese: 詩; pinyin: Shī), is the earliest existing collection of Chinese poems and songs. It comprises 305 poems and songs dating from the 10th to the 7th century BC.^[1][2] It forms part of the Five Classics. The Odes first became known as a jīng, or a "classic book", in the canonical sense, as part of the Han Dynasty official adoption of Confucianism as the guiding principles of Chinese society. The word shi is the same word that later became a generic term for poetry.^[3] In English, lacking an exact equivalent for the Chinese, the translation of the word shi in this regard is generally as "poem", "song", or "ode".

The Shijing is an anthology compiled from the works of various anonymous authorship. The various collected works are generally associated with specific chronological periods, such as the Zhou Dynasty, and/or associated with the specific states of that time period; however, many uncertainties exist, especially as to dates of the earliest poems.

According to tradition, the method of collection of the various Shijing poems involved the appointment of officials, whose duties included documenting verses current from the various states which constituting the empire. Out of these many collected pieces, also according to tradition, Confucius made a final editorial round of decisions for elimination or inclusion in the received version of the Shijing. As with all great literary works of ancient China, the Shijing poems have been annotated and commented on numerous times throughout history, as well as in this case providing a model to inspire future poetic works.

Chronology[link]

The Classic of Poetry contains the oldest chronologically authenticated Chinese poems.^[3] As written literature, the majority of the Odes date to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BC), however one of the sections included in the Shijing purports to be ritual songs of the Shang Dynasty court^[4] (approximately dated 1600 BC to 1046 BC). There are five of these.^[5] The latest material in the Shijing (said by scholar Zheng Xuan to be the song "Tree-stump Grove" (Chinese: 株林) in the "Odes of Chen") dates to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (c. 700 BC).^[6] The odes themselves tend to be arranged in reverse chronological order, with the earliest, the "Sacrificial Odes of Shang", appearing at the end.^[5]

Poetic qualities[link]

The first song of the Classic of Poetry, handwritten by the Qianlong Emperor, with accompanying painting.

The poems are written in four-character lines. The airs are in the style of folk songs, although the extent to which they are real folk songs or literary imitations is debated. The odes deal with matters of court and historical subjects, while the hymns blend history, myth and religious material.

The three major literary figures or styles employed in the poems are straightforward narrative (fù 賦), explicit comparisons (bǐ 比) and implied comparisons (xìng 興).

Topics[link]

Over half of the poems are said to have originally been popular songs. They concern basic human problems such as love, marriage, work, and war. Others include court poems, and legendary accounts praising the founders of the Zhou Dynasty. Included are also hymns used in sacrificial rites,^[7] and songs used by the aristocracy in their sacrificial ceremonies or at banquets.^[8]

Style[link]

The poems of Classic of Poetry tend to have certain typical patterns in both rhyme and rhythm, to make much use of imagery, often derived from nature. The various individual verses also tend to be short: the style of these lyric poems contributed to the development of later Chinese poetry (especially for the shi as opposed to ci or fu formal categories); although the four-character line which is typical for them was largely replaced by either the five or the seven-character line.

Authorship[link]

Although the Shijing does not specify the names of authors in association with the contained works, both traditional commentaries and modern scholarship have put forth hypotheses on authorship. The Classic of History says that the poem "Owl" (Chinese: 鴟鴞) in the "Odes of Bin" was written by the Duke of Zhou. Many of the songs appear to be folk songs and other compositions used in the court ceremonies of the aristocracy.^[8] Furthermore many of the songs, based on internal evidence, appear to be written either by women, or from the perspective of a female persona. The repeated emphasis on female authorship of poetry in the Shijing was made much of in the process of attempting to give the poems of the women poets of the Ming-Qing period canonical status.^[9] Despite the impersonality of the poetic voice characteristic of the Songs^[10] many of the poems are written from the perspective of various generic personalities.

Origins and editing[link]

Map of states during Western Zhou period

Various traditions concern the gathering of the compiled songs and the editorial selection from these make up the classic text of the Odes: "Royal Officials' Collecting Songs" (Chinese: 王官采詩) is recorded in the Book of Han,^[11] and "Master Confucius Deletes Songs" (Chinese: 孔子刪詩) refers to Confucius and his mention in the Records of the Grand Historian, where it says from originally some 3,000 songs and poems in a previously extant "Odes" that Confucius personally selected the "300" which he felt best conformed to traditional ritual propriety, thus producing the Classic of Poetry.

Collecting[link]

The Confucian school eventually came to consider the verses of the "Guofeng", or "Airs of the State" section to have been collected in the course of activities of officers dispatched by the Zhou Dynasty court, whose duties included the field collection of the songs local to the territorial states of Zhou.^[3] This territory was roughly the Yellow River Plain, Shandong, southwestern Hebei, eastern Gansu, and the Han River region. Perhaps during the harvest. After the officials returned from their missions, the king was said to have observed them himself in an effort to understand the current condition of the common people.^[3] The well-being of the people was of special concern to the Zhou because of their ideological position that the right to rule was based on the benignity of the rulers to the people in accordance with the will of Heaven, and that this Heavenly Mandate would be withdrawn upon the failure of the ruling dynasty to ensure the prosperity of their subjects.^[12] The people's folksongs were deemed to be the best gauge of their feelings and conditions, and thus indicative of whether the nobility was ruling according to the mandate of Heaven or not, accordingly the songs were collected from the various regions, converted from their diverse regional dialects into standard literary language, and presented accompanied with music at the royal courts.^[13]

Confucius[link]

Image of a bronze figure of Confucius

Confucian tradition, beginning with Sima Qian, held that the Shijing collection was edited by Confucius from a larger 3,000-piece collection to its traditional 305-piece form.^[14] This claim is generally discredited, as the Zuo Zhuan records that the Shijing already existed in a definitive form when Confucius was just a young child. The argument for canonicity (as a jing, or classic) included the traditional claim that Confucius selected and edited the Shijing poems from significantly larger body of prexisting material.^[8] In his own works, Confucius comments upon the Classic of Poetry in such a way as to indicate that he holds it in great esteem. The Analects records: "The Master said: The three hundred Odes, summarizing them in one phrase, say: 'Speak only of going straight.'"^{[15][n 1]} Another story in the Analects recounts that Confucius' son Kong Li told the story: "The Master once stood by himself, and I hurried to seek teaching from him. He asked me, 'You've studied the Odes?' I answered, 'Not yet.' He replied, 'If you study the Odes not, then I have nothing to speak.'"^[16]

Influence and legacy[link]

The Odes provided founding principles in composition and rhyme that were patterned by Chinese writers for well over two thousand years, and are thus a seminal influence on Chinese Classical poetry.

Confucian allegory[link]

Strip no. 22 of Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn (孔子詩論), an early discussion of the Classic of Poetry. Ink brushed on bamboo strips, dating back to the Warring States period (475–221 BC), collection of the Shanghai Museum.

The Shijing has been a revered Confucian classic since the Han Dynasty, and has been studied and memorized by centuries of scholars in China.^[7] The popular songs were seen as good keys to understanding the troubles of the common people, and were often read as allegories; complaints against lovers were seen as complaints against faithless rulers, for example.^[7]

Canonicity[link]

The Confucian contention that the Shijing collection formed one part of the Five Classics was officially acknowledged during the Han Dynasty. These five books, or parts of them, were either commented, compiled, or edited by Confucius himself.

Confucian schools[link]

The Classic of Poetry received an early endorsement as part of the Confucian canon. In regard to this, four schools of commentary existed, namely the Qi (齊), the Lu (魯), the Han (韓), and the Mao (毛) schools. The first two schools did not survive, and the Han school only survived partly. The Mao school's commentaries on the Book of Songs such as the Mao school annotations by Han Dynasty scholar Mao Heng (Chinese: 毛亨; pinyin: Máo​ Hēng​) and his nephew Mao Chang (Chinese: 毛萇; pinyin: Máo​ Cháng​) became referred to as "Mao Shi" (毛詩). The collection is also derivatively became canonical. Zheng Xuan's elucidation on the Mao commentary also reached canonical status.

Historical evidence[link]

Additionally, the Odes preserve the descriptions of daily life among the ancient Chinese culture of the Yellow River watershed.

Political influence[link]

The Odes became an important and controversial force, influencing political, social and educational phenomena.^[17] During the struggle between Confucian, Legalist, and other schools of thought, the Confucians used the Shijing to bolster their viewpoint.^[17] On the Confucian side, the Shijing became a foundational text which informed and validated literature, education, and political affairs.^[18] The Legalists, on their side, attempted to suppress the Shijing by violence, after the Legalist philosophy was endorsed by the Qin Dynasty, prior to their final triumph over the neighboring states: the suppression of Confucian and other thought and literature after the Qin victories and the start of Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars era, starting in 213 BC, extended to attempt to prohibit the Shijing.^[17]

As the idea of allegorical expression grew, when kingdoms or feudal leaders wished to express or validate their own positions, they would sometimes couch the message within a poem, or by allusion. This practice became common among educated Chinese in their personal correspondences and spread to Japan and Korea as well.

Modern scholarship[link]

Modern scholarship on the Classic of Poetry often focuses on doing linguistic reconstruction and research in Old Chinese by analyzing the rhyme schemes in the Odes, which show vast differences when read in modern Mandarin Chinese.^[19] Although preserving more Old Chinese syllable endings than Mandarin, Modern Cantonese and Min Nan are also quite different from the Old Chinese language represented in the Odes.^[20]

Contents overview[link]

The collection is divided into three parts according to their genre, namely feng, ya and song, with the ya genre further divided into "small" and "large":

Contents list[link]

Translations[link]

• Classic of Poetry, in The Sacred Books of China, translated by James Legge, 1879.
• The Book of Songs, translated by Arthur Waley, edited with additional translations by Joseph R. Allen, New York: Grove Press, 1996.
• Book of Poetry, translated by Xu Yuanchong (許淵沖), edited by Jiang Shengzhang (姜勝章), Hunan, China: Hunan chubanshe, 1993.
• The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius, translated by Ezra Pound, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954.
• The Book of Odes, translated by Bernhard Karlgren, Stockholm: The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950.

See also[link]

• Chinese classics
• Classical Chinese poetry
• Guan ju
• Chengyu
• Chinese art

Notes[link]

References[link]

Footnotes

Works cited

• de Bary, William Theodore, ed. (1960) Sources of Chinese Tradition: Volume I New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-10939-0
• Chang, Kang-i Sun (2001). "Gender and Canonicity", in Hsiang Lectures on Chinese Poetry, Volume 1, Grace S. Fong, editor. Montreal: Center for East Asian Research, McGill University.
• Davis, A. R. (Albert Richard), ed. (1970). The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse. Baltimore: Penguin Books.
• Frankel, Hans H. (1978). The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-02242-5.
• Hinton, David (2008). Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10536-7 / ISBN 978-0-374-10536-5.
• Idema, Wilt; Haft, Lloyd (1997), A Guide to Chinese Literature, Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, ISBN 089264099. 
• Yip, Wai-lim (1997). Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres . Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-1946-2

External links[link]

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article: 詩經

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Classic of Poetry

• Bilingual Chinese-English searchable edition at Chinese Text Project
• Legge's translation of the Book of Odes at Chinese text initiative
• The Book of Odes in Chinese arrayed with James Legge translation.
• Shijing with Mao prefaces and Zhu Xi commentary by Harrison Huang^{[dead link]}
• Legge's translation of the Book of Odes at the Internet Sacred Text Archive.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2009)

Natalie Merchant
In concert in Maryhill, Washington in 2010
Background information
Birth name	Natalie Anne Merchant
Born	(1963-10-26) October 26, 1963 (age 48) Jamestown, New York, USA
Occupations	Musician, Songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, keyboard, piano
Years active	1981–present
Labels	Elektra Records Myth America Records Nonesuch/Elektra Records
Associated acts	10,000 Maniacs Michael Stipe
Website	NatalieMerchant.com

Natalie Anne Merchant (born October 26, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She joined the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and left it to begin her solo career in 1993.

Early life[link]

Natalie Merchant was born October 26, 1963, in Jamestown, New York, the third of four children of Anthony and Ann Merchant. Her paternal grandfather, who played the accordion, mandolin and guitar, emigrated to the United States from Sicily; his surname was "Mercante" before it was Anglicized.^[1] Her maternal grandfather, a cartoonist, piano tuner and member of a barbershop quartet, was Irish.^[1] Her parents divorced when she was eight years old, and her mother later remarried.^[2]

When Merchant was a child, her mother listened to music (The Beatles, Al Green, Aretha Franklin)^[3] and encouraged her children to study music, but she wouldn't allow TV after Natalie was 12. "I was taken to the symphony a lot because my mother loved classical music. But I was dragged to see Styx when I was 12. We had to drive 100 miles to Buffalo, New York. Someone threw up next to me and people were smoking pot. It was terrifying. I remember Styx had a white piano which rose out of the stage. It was awe-inspiring and inspirational."^[4] "She [her mother] had show tunes, she had the soundtrack from West Side Story and South Pacific. And then eventually... she'd always liked classical music and then she married a jazz musician, so that's the kind of music I was into. I never really had friends who sat around and listened to the stereo and said 'hey, listen to this one', so I'd never even heard of who Bob Dylan was until I was 18."^[5] During 1988–1989, Natalie claimed she still didn't have a TV: "I grew up in a house where no one watched the news on television and no one read the paper. I've been discovering these things as I get older, and the news has affected me more than it ever has before."^[6]

"A suicidal high school dropout", Merchant started working in a health food store at 16.^[2] She considered a career in special education following her taking part in a handicapped children's summer program. But eventually in 1981 she started singing for a band called Still Life, which was to become 10,000 Maniacs.^[2]

Career[link]

10,000 Maniacs[link]

The period featuring Merchant was the most critically and commercially successful for 10,000 Maniacs. She is seen here with Rob Buck and the band during that time.

Merchant was lead singer and primary lyricist for 10,000 Maniacs, joining in its infancy in 1981 while she was a student at Jamestown Community College. The group recorded their album Human Conflict Number Five and performed a corresponding Music video at The Hotel Franklin and at Group W Westinghouse studios (Jamestown, New York) in 1982. Merchant sang lead vocals, and later played the piano as well, for 10,000 Maniacs for seven studio albums. In 1993 she announced that she was leaving the group.^[7]

[edit] Tigerlily (1995)

Merchant has said in interviews that after her split with 10,000 Maniacs she was so eager to begin writing her own material that she went home that very day and composed the song "I May Know the Word", which was originally meant to appear on the soundtrack to the Tom Hanks movie Philadelphia. The song was eventually cut from the soundtrack, but it would go on to appear on Merchant's debut solo album, Tigerlily, which was released on the Elektra label in 1995. Merchant chose to name the album Tigerlily as she felt it captured the feel of the album, which she described as both "fierce" and "delicate".

The third song on the album, "Beloved Wife", was featured as the first song in the trailer for the movie Message in a Bottle.

Seeking creative control, Merchant chose to fund Tigerlily herself, refusing the advance from the record company. She also wanted to work with a core-group of young musicians who she felt would be enthusiastic about the music. The group would consist of guitarist Jennifer Turner, bassist Barrie Maguire, and former-Wallflower and eventual boyfriend to Merchant, Peter Yanowitz, who played drums on the album and who continued to do so with Merchant until their abrupt split in 2000.

Tigerlily was a critical and commercial success, spawning her first top-ten hit in the single "Carnival", and achieving top-40 success with subsequent singles "Wonder" and "Jealousy". The album would go on to sell over 5 million copies, and continues to be Merchant’s most successful album to date. Merchant did extensive touring for the album and made numerous television appearances, including performances on SNL, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and all late-night talk shows. The media's immediate and critical impact on culture and cultural icons was of particular interest to Merchant. In "River", a song from Tigerlily, Merchant defends River Phoenix as she castigates the media for systematically dissecting the child actor after his death. Much of their emphasis was on Phoenix' suspected drug-using lifestyle. In "River," Merchant asks, "Why don't you let him be / Give his mother and father peace." Merchant's anger is later replaced with quiet reflection, asking, "It was such a nightmare raving, 'How could we save him from himself?'"^[8]

[edit] Ophelia (1998–1999)

Three years passed before Merchant would release her second solo effort, Ophelia. While Tigerlily contained a lot of sparse instrumentation, the music on Ophelia featured plenty of lush symphonic arrangements composed and conducted by British composer Gavin Bryars. Merchant treated the recording of Ophelia as a series of workshops, where she would invite various musicians she had met over the years into her home studio to collaborate and record. In the end, 30 different musicians featured on the album, among them Brand New Heavies frontwoman N'Dea Davenport (with whom she duets on the song Break Your Heart), famed trumpet player Chris Botti, and the husband and wife duo, Don and Karen Peris, from the band The Innocence Mission.

While Ophelia is not a concept record in the traditional sense, the album-cycle saw Merchant flexing her creative muscles in surprising ways. The name of the album and the title track are a literary reference to Shakespeare's Ophelia, who in the play Hamlet becomes mad and eventually commits suicide when Hamlet remains non-committal and lost in himself. Merchant's Ophelia describes a series of women throughout time—women who dared question the patriarchal status quo and who were often castigated for doing so—and is a cry for women's rights and for more understanding of female archetypes beyond the scope of the "mother" and the "whore", both of which severely limit women and attempt to turn them into little more than chattel. The portrayal of the women in the song is a tribute to the non-traditional, the "too smart for her own good" type of woman who is often misunderstood by society. As a lyric to the title song cries: "Your common sense, your best defense, was wasted and in vain!" A reflection of women driven mad by social limitations, Natalie's tribute described Ophelia as being at once a "novice carmelite," a "suffragette," a "circus queen," a "demigoddess" and a "mafia courtesan." The album sleeve saw Merchant pictured in colorful and ornate costumes as each of these different characters. As a companion to the album, she also released a film where she portrays each of these different characters, with voice-overs used for the "novice carmelite," the "sweetheart" and the "courtesan" as they are Spanish, German and Italian, respectively.

The first single off the album was a happy and uncharacteristically simple song called "Kind and Generous", which received massive airplay on VH1 and which solidified Merchant's role as a bona fide solo artist. That summer, Sarah McLachlan invited Merchant to co-headline the year's biggest music festival with her, Lilith Fair. The exposure from the tour helped the album reach Platinum status in just under a year, with subsequent singles "Break Your Heart" and "Life Is Sweet" receiving moderate airplay on adult contemporary stations. No video was filmed for the latter, however, with a clip from Merchant's appearance on VH1's Storytellers being used instead. She would also go on to appear on PBS' Sessions at West 54th and VH1's Hard Rock Live before the year's end. In 1998, Merchant also recorded George Gershwin's "But Not for Me" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to George Gershwin, which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS awareness and fighting the disease.

The Ophelia tour ended in 1999 with the final few shows being performed and recorded on Broadway. The performance would be released as the album Natalie Merchant: Live in Concert with a companion video of the same name. The performance was notable in that it featured numerous covers including songs by David Bowie, Neil Young, and the Breton-Welsh singer-songwriter Katell Keineg.

[edit] American Folk Music Tour (2000) and Motherland (2001)

In 2000, Merchant embarked on a folk tour in the United States with many shows being supported by alt-country band Wilco.

Merchant's next studio album on the Elektra label was Motherland, released in 2001. Motherland saw Merchant at her most experimental musically. Motherland achieved Gold on the Billboard charts after debuting at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 and No. 13 on the Top Internet Albums of 2001, respectively. Rolling Stone favored this album with 3½ stars, and also noticed a difference in Merchant's voice, which was more deep and gritty than her previous albums. Singles that were released from Motherland were "Just Can't Last", "Build a Levee" and "Tell Yourself".

Merchant embarked on a year and a half world tour to promote Motherland. The first leg of the tour started in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 17, 2001, trekking all over the United States, and then heading to Europe with some special acoustic shows in Europe. Merchant also participated in the Rock am Ring Festival and Rock im Park in 2002. In the summer of 2002, she was paired with Chris Isaak and both played at stadiums and arenas.

[edit] The House Carpenter's Daughter (2003)

Merchant at the piano in 2005

After her contract with Elektra expired in August 2002, Merchant decided not to sign with them again, or any other major label.^[9] Her next studio album, The House Carpenter's Daughter, was released in September 2003 on her own label, Myth America Records. To date this has been the only release on Myth America.

[edit] Leave Your Sleep (2010)

In October 2009, the official websites of Nonesuch Records and Natalie Merchant announced that she had signed with the label. Leave Your Sleep was released on April 13, 2010 ^[10] and is a compilation of five years of inspiration from a "conversation" with her daughter over the "first 6 years of her life." The album debuted on the Billboard Top 200 at No. 17, Billboard Folk Albums at No. 1, Amazon.com at No.1, and ITunes, No. 3. The album was co-produced by Grammy winning Andres Levin.

Merchant contributed a cover of Buddy Holly's "Learning the Game" to the tribute album Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, released September 6, 2011.

Personal life[link]

Merchant became known for her swirling style of dancing and her simple dress while performing with 10,000 Maniacs

In 2003, Merchant married Daniel de la Calle and had a daughter with him named Lucia. However, in an interview in 2012, she indicated that she is now divorced.^{[11] [12]} She likes gardening and painting.^[13] Some paintings can be seen at her official website.

She has been a vegetarian since 1980,^[14] save for the duration of her pregnancy when she temporarily resumed eating meat.^[11] In 1997, she said:

"The '60s aesthetic has never really appealed to me, the tie-dyed Deadhead running barefoot through the forest on LSD. I don't think that's really me. But I've been a vegetarian for 17 years and I consider myself an environmentalist in as much as I can be, considering the job that I have. I prefer living in the countryside rather than the city; I find it more sane and sustaining for myself..."^[15]

Discography[link]

With 10,000 Maniacs[link]

• Human Conflict Number Five (EP) (1982)
• Secrets of the I Ching (1983)
• The Wishing Chair (1985)
• In My Tribe (1987)
• Blind Man's Zoo (1989)
• Hope Chest: The Fredonia Recordings 1982-1983 (1990)
• Our Time in Eden (1992)
• MTV Unplugged (1993)
• Campfire Songs: The Popular, Obscure and Unknown Recordings (2004)

Solo[link]

• 1995: Tigerlily
• 1998: Ophelia
• 2001: Motherland
• 2003: The House Carpenter's Daughter
• 2005: Retrospective (1990 - 2005)
• 2010: Leave Your Sleep

Filmography[link]

Films[link]

Television[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Natalie Merchant

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Natalie Merchant

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2012)

• Official website
• Natalie Merchant at the Open Directory Project
• Natalie Merchant at the Ectophile's Guide to Good Music
• Natalie Merchant at the Internet Movie Database
• Natalie Merchant discography at MusicBrainz
• Launch's page on Merchant
• Natalie Merchant interview at musicOMH

James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones in 2010.
Born	(1931-01-17) January 17, 1931 (age 81) Arkabutla, Mississippi, United States
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1953–present
Spouse	Julienne Marie (divorced) Cecilia Hart (1982–present)

James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. Since his Broadway debut in 1957, Jones has spent more than five decades as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile actors"^[1] and has been termed "one of the greatest actors in American history."^[2] On November 12, 2011, Jones received an Honorary Academy Award.^[2]

He is well known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership.

Early life[link]

Childhood[link]

James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi, son of Robert Earl Jones (1910–2006), an actor, boxer, butler, and chauffeur who left the family shortly after James Earl's birth, and his wife Ruth (Connolly) Jones, a teacher and maid.^[3][4] Jones and his father reconciled many years later. Jones was raised by his maternal grandparents, farmers John Henry and Maggie Connolly.^[5] He is multiracial, with African, Irish, and Native American ancestry.^[6][7]

Jones describes his grandmother, Maggie, as "the most racist person I have ever known", thus forcing him to develop his own independent thinking. His grandmother was of Cherokee, Choctaw, and black ancestry.^[8]

He moved to his grandparents' farm in Jackson, Michigan when he was five, but the transition was traumatic and he developed a stutter so severe he refused to speak. When he moved to Brethren, Michigan in later years, a teacher at the Brethren schools helped him over his stutter. He remained functionally mute for eight years, until he entered high school. He credits his English teacher, Donald Crouch, who discovered he had a gift for writing poetry, with helping him end his silence.^[4] Crouch believed forced public speaking would help Jones gain confidence and insisted he recite a poem in class every day.^[9] "I was a stutterer. I couldn't talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year, and then those mute years continued until I got to high school."^[10]

Education[link]

After being educated at the Browning School for boys in his high school years and graduating from Brethren High School in Brethren, Michigan, Jones attended the University of Michigan where he was a pre-med major.^[4] He joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps, and excelled. He felt comfortable within the structure of the military environment, and enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow cadets in the Pershing Rifles Drill Team and Scabbard and Blade Honor Society.^[11] During the course of his studies, Jones discovered he was not cut out to be a doctor. Instead he focused himself on drama, with the thought of doing something he enjoyed, before, he assumed, he would have to go off to fight in the Korean War. After four years of college, Jones graduated from the University in 1955.^[12]

Military[link]

With the war intensifying in Korea, Jones expected to be sent to the war as soon as he received his commission as a second lieutenant. As he waited for his orders, he worked as a part-time stage crew hand at the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Michigan, where he had earlier performed. Jones was commissioned in mid 1953 and reported to Fort Benning to attend Basic Infantry Officers School. He then attended through Ranger School and received his Ranger Tab (although he stated during an interview on the BBC's The One Show screened on November 11, 2009 that he "washed out" of Ranger training). He was initially to report to Fort Leonard Wood, but his unit was instead sent to establish a cold weather training command at the Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado. His battalion became a training unit in the bitter cold weather and the rugged terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Jones was promoted to first lieutenant prior to his discharge.^[13] He then moved to New York, where he studied at the American Theatre Wing, working as a janitor to support himself.

Film and stage career[link]

Early career[link]

Jones began his acting career at the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Michigan. In 1953 he was a stage carpenter. During the 1955–1957 seasons he was an actor and stage manager. He performed his first portrayal of Shakespeare’s Othello in this theater in 1955.^[14]

Stage roles[link]

	Othello Jones performs Othello's Act I, scene III monologue from Shakespeare's Othello at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word on May 12, 2009. "Othello" Audio only
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Jones is an accomplished stage actor; he has won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences. He has acted in many Shakespearean roles: Othello, King Lear, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, and Claudius in Hamlet. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2002.

On April 7, 2005, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams headed the cast in an African-American Broadway revival version of On Golden Pond, directed by Leonard Foglia and produced by Jeffrey Finn.^[4]

In February 2008, he starred on Broadway as Big Daddy in a limited-run, all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and mounted at the Broadhurst Theatre.

In November 2009, James reprised the role of Big Daddy in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Novello Theatre in London's West End. This production also stars Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, Phylicia Rashad as Big Mamma, and Adrian Lester as Brick.

In October 2010, Jones returned to the Broadway stage in Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy along with Vanessa Redgrave at the Golden Theatre.^[15]

In November 2011, Jones starred in Driving Miss Daisy in London's West End, and on November 12 Jones received his honorary Oscar in front of the audience at the Wyndham's Theatre, which was presented to him by Ben Kingsley.^[16]

Film roles[link]

His first film role was as a young and trim Lt. Lothar Zogg, the B-52 bombardier in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964. His first big role came with his portrayal of boxer Jack Jefferson in the The Great White Hope a reprise of the role he had performed on Broadway play, which was based on the life of boxer Jack Johnson. For his role, Jones was nominated Best Actor by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, making him the second African-American male performer (following Sidney Poitier) to receive a nomination.^[4]

In the early 1970s, James appeared with Diahann Carroll in a film called Claudine, the story of a woman who raises her six children alone after two failed marriages and one "almost" marriage. Ruppert, played by Jones, is a garbage man who has deep problems of his own. The couple somehow overcomes each other's pride and stubbornness and get married.

Jones also played the villain Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian, "Few Clothes" Johnson in John Sayles Matewan, the author Terence Mann in Field of Dreams, the feared neighbor Mr. Mertle in The Sandlot, King Jaffe Joffer in Coming to America, Reverend Stephen Kumalo in Cry, the Beloved Country, Raymond Lee Murdock in A Family Thing, and Vice Admiral James Greer in The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger, among many others.

Jones is also well known as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. Darth Vader was portrayed in costume by David Prowse in the original trilogy, with Jones dubbing Vader's dialogue in postproduction due to Prowse's strong West Country accent being unsuitable for the role.^[17] At his own request, he was originally uncredited for the release of the first two films (he would later be credited for the two in the 1997 re-release):

When Linda Blair did the girl in The Exorcist, they hired Mercedes McCambridge to do the voice of the devil coming out of her. And there was controversy as to whether Mercedes should get credit. I was one who thought no, she was just special effects. So when it came to Darth Vader, I said, no I'm just special effects. But it became so identified that by the third one, I thought, OK I've been denying it, I've been saying it sounds like the uncola nut guy Holder. Geoffrey Holder! ... But for the third one, I said OK, I'll let them put my name on it.^[18]

Although uncredited, Jones' voice is briefly heard as Darth Vader at the conclusion of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. When specifically asked whether he had supplied the voice, possibly from a previous recording, Jones told New York Newsday: "You'd have to ask Lucas about that. I don't know."^[18] However, on the issue of the voice, the commentary on the DVD release states that, while it will always be uncredited, any true Star Wars fan "should know the answer".^[19]

Jones reprised his role as the voice of Vader several times: he is credited in the movie Robots with the voice of Darth Vader from a voice module. Playing the king of Zamunda in the comedy Coming to America, he echoed four Darth Vader phrases. He also vocally appeared as Vader in the comedy film The Benchwarmers and the video games Star Wars: Monopoly and Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game. Jones' voice is also used for the Jedi Training Academy attraction at Disneyland and at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Jones returned as Vader for the video game: Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. Jones also reprised his role as Vader in the new Disney attraction; Star Tours: The Adventures Continue.^[20]

Other voiceover work[link]

His other voice roles include Mufasa in the 1994 animated Disney film The Lion King and its direct-to-video sequel, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Archive recordings from the film would later be used for the English version of the 2005 video game Kingdom Hearts II, since Jones himself was unable to reprise the role. He also voiced the Emperor of the Night in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night.

In 1990, Jones performed voice work for the Simpsons Halloween episode "Treehouse of Horror", in which he was the narrator for the Simpsons' version of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven". In 1992, Jones was often seen as the host on the video tele-monitor for the Sea World resort in Orlando, Florida.

In 1996, he recited the classic baseball poem Casey at the Bat, with the accompaniment of arranger/composer Steven Reineke and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra^[21]

He also has done the CNN tagline, "This is CNN", as well as "This is CNN International", and the Bell Atlantic tagline, "Bell Atlantic: The heart of communication". When Bell Atlantic became Verizon, Jones used the tagline greeting of "Welcome to Verizon" or "Verizon 411" right before a phone call would go through. The opening for NBC's coverage of the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics; "the Big PI in the Sky" (God) in the computer game Under a Killing Moon; a Claymation film about The Creation; and several other guest spots on The Simpsons.

Television roles[link]

Jones has the unusual distinction of being the only actor to win two Emmys^[22] in the same year, in 1991 as Best Actor for his role in Gabriel's Fire and as Best Supporting Actor for his work in Heat Wave.^[23]

Jones portrayed the older version of author Alex Haley, in the television mini-series Roots: The Next Generations;^[4] the GDI's commanding general James Solomon in the live-action sequences of the video game Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun; and widowed police officer Neb Langston in the television program Under One Roof, for which he received an Emmy nomination. He also appeared in television and radio advertising for Verizon Business DSL and Verizon Online DSL from Verizon Communications.

Jones appeared in the 1963–1964 television season in an episode of ABC's drama series about college life, Channing, starring Jason Evers and Henry Jones. He appeared on the soap opera Guiding Light. He portrayed Thad Green on Mathnet, a parody of Dragnet.

In 1969, Jones participated in making test films for a proposed children's television series called Sesame Street; these shorts, combined with animated segments, were shown to groups of children to gauge the effectiveness of the then-groundbreaking Sesame Street format. As cited by production notes included in the DVD release Sesame Street: Old School 1969–1974, the short that had the greatest impact with test audiences was one showing bald-headed Jones counting slowly to ten. This and other segments featuring Jones were eventually aired as part of the Sesame Street series itself when it debuted later in 1969 and Jones is often cited as the first celebrity guest on that series, although a segment with Carol Burnett was the first to actually be broadcast.^[4]

He has played lead characters on television in three series. First, he appeared on the short-lived CBS police drama Paris, which aired during autumn 1979. That show was notable as the first program on which Steven Bochco served as executive producer. The second show aired on ABC between 1990 and 1992, the first season being titled Gabriel's Fire and the second (after a format revision), Pros and Cons.

In both formats of that show, Jones played a former policeman wrongly convicted of murder who, upon his release from prison, became a private eye. In 1995, Jones starred in Under One Roof as Neb Langston, a widowed African-American police officer sharing his home in Seattle with his daughter, his married son with his children, and Neb's newly adopted son. The show was a mid-season replacement and lasted only six weeks.

From 1989 to 1993, Jones served as the host of the children's TV series Long Ago and Far Away.

In 1996, James guest starred in the CBS drama Touched by an Angel as the Angels of Angels in the episode "Clipped Wings". In 1998, Jones starred in the widely acclaimed syndicated program An American Moment (created by James R. Kirk and Ninth Wave Productions). Jones took over the role left by Charles Kuralt, upon Kuralt's death. He also made a cameo appearance in a penultimate episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and has guest-starred on such sitcoms as NBC's Frasier and Will & Grace, CBS's Two and a Half Men, and the WB drama Everwood. Jones also lent his voice for a narrative part in the Adam Sandler comedy, Click, released in June 2006. His voice is also used to create an audio version of the King James New Testament.

Personal life[link]

Jones has been married to actress Cecilia Hart since 1982. They have one child, Flynn Earl Jones. He was previously married to American actress/singer Julienne Marie (born March 21, 1937, Toledo, Ohio); they had no children.

Awards[link]

Academy Awards

• 1971 Best Actor in a Leading Role – The Great White Hope (Nominated)
• 2011 Academy Honorary Award

Emmy Awards

• 1964 Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie/East Side/West Side (Nominated)
• 1990 Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie/By Dawn's Early Light (Nominated)
• 1991 Outstanding Lead Actor – Drama Series/Gabriel's Fire
• 1991 Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie/Heat Wave
• 1994 Outstanding Guest Actor – Drama Series/Picket Fences (Nominated)
• 1995 Outstanding Supporting Actor – Drama Series/Under One Roof (Nominated)
• 1997 Outstanding Guest Actor – Comedy Series/Frasier (Nominated)
• 1999 Outstanding Performer – Children's Special
• 2004 Outstanding Guest Actor – Drama Series/Everwood (Nominated)

Golden Globe Awards

• 1971 New Star of the Year – Actor/The Great White Hope
• 1971 Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama/The Great White Hope (Nominated)
• 1975 Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy/Claudine (Nominated)
• 1991 Best Actor in a Drama Series/Gabriel's Fire (Nominated)
• 1992 Best Actor in a Drama Series/Pros and Cons (Nominated)

Independent Spirit Awards

• 1987 Best Supporting Male/Matewan (Nominated)

Screen Actors Guild Awards

• 1996 Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role/Cry, the Beloved Country (Nominated)
• 2009 Life Achievement Award

Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play

• 1969 Best Leading Actor in a Play/The Great White Hope
• 1987 Best Leading Actor in a Play/Fences
• 2005 Best Leading Actor in a Play/On Golden Pond (Nominated)
• 2012 Best Leading Actor in a Play/The Best Man (Nominated)

Other awards

• 1991 Common Wealth Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Dramatic Arts
• 1992 National Medal of Arts
• 2011 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Monte Cristo Award Recipient

Filmography[link]

Other voice acting[link]

• Kingdom Hearts II (2006) (archived audio, voice)
• Disneyland Hollywood Studios (2008) (voice)

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Jones, James Earl, and Penelope Niven. James Earl Jones: Voices and Silences (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1993) ISBN 0-684-19513-5
• Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James Earl Jones

• James Earl Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• James Earl Jones at the Internet Broadway Database
• James Earl Jones at Internet Off-Broadway Database
• James Earl Jones at the TCM Movie Database
• TonyAwards.com Interview with James Earl Jones
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof All African-American production website
• James Earl Jones at Emmys.com

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There are many people in history who are commonly appended with the phrase "the Great", or who were called that or an equivalent phrase in their own language. Other languages have their own suffixes such as e Bozorg and e azam in Persian and Urdu respectively.

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.^[1]

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus)^[2] assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "the Great".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers[link]

• Abbas I of Persia (1571–1629), Shah of Iran
• Akbar (1542–1605), ruler of the Mughal Empire of South Asia, mainly India
• Alain I of Albret (1440–1522), French aristocrat
• Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and all of Mesopotamia
• Alexander I of Georgia (1386–1446), King of Georgia
• Alfonso III of León (c. 848-910), King of León, Galicia and Asturias
• Alfred the Great (848/849-899), King of Wessex
• Antiochus III the Great (c. 241–187 BC), ruler of the Seleucid Empire
• Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC), Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty
• Ashot I of Iberia “the Great”(died 826/830), presiding prince of Iberia (modern Georgia),
• Askia Mohammad I (c. 1442–1538), ruler of the Songhai Empire
• Bhumibol Adulyadej (born 1927), King of Thailand
• Bolesław I Chrobry (967-1025), sometimes called "the Great", first King of Poland
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the following section)
• Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (1736–1809), founder and ruler of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (in what is now Thailand)
• Cnut the Great (c. 985 or 995-1035), King of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden
• Casimir III the Great (1310–1370), King of Poland
• Catherine the Great (1729–1796), Empress of Russia
• Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/415), also known as Vikramaditya, ruler of the Gupta empire in India
• Charlemagne (died 814), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans
• Chulalongkorn (1853–1910), King of Siam (now Thailand)
• Chlothar II (584-629), King of Neustria and King of the Franks
• Conrad, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1097-1157), Margrave of Meissen
• Constantine I (c. 272-337), Roman emperor
• Cyaxares the Great (c. 625-585 BC), third king of Media
• Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), founder and ruler of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire
• Darius the Great (550 – 486 BC), third ruler of the Persian Empire
• Devapala (died 850), ruler of the Pala Empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Dionysius I, Greek tyrant of Syracuse^[3]
• Ferdinand I of León and Castile (c. 1015–1065), King of León and Count of Castile
• Frederick the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia
• Genghis Khan (1162?-1227), founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire
• Gero (c. 900–965), ruler of Marca Geronis, a very large march in Europe
• Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632), King of Sweden, founder of the Swedish Empire, and noted military leader
• Gwanggaeto the Great, King of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea^[4][5]
• Hanno the Great, the name of three leaders of Carthage, in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd centuries BC
• Henry I, Duke of Burgundy (946–1002)
• Henry IV of France (1553–1610), King of France and King of Navarre
• Herod the Great (73/74 BC-4 BC), King of Judea
• Hugh the Great (898-956), Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris
• Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France
• Hugh I, Count of Vermandois (1057–1101)
• Humphrey I de Bohun (died c. 1123), Anglo-Norman aristocrat
• Ivan III of Russia (1440–1505), Tsar of Russia
• John I of Portugal (1358–1433), King of Portugal and the Algarve
• John II of Aragon (1398–1479), King of Aragon and, through his wife, King of Navarre
• Justinian I (483-565), Byzantine Emperor
• Kamehameha I (c. 1758-1819), first King of Hawai'i
• Kanishka (died c. 127), ruler of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia and parts of India
• Kvirike III of Kakheti (1010–1029), King of Kakheti in eastern Georgia
• Kublai Khan (1215–1294), Mongol ruler in the 13th century and Emperor of China; founder of the Yuan Dynasty
• Llywelyn the Great (c. 1172–1240), Prince of Gwynedd and de facto ruler of most of Wales
• Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382), King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland
• Mangrai the Great (1238–1317), Lanna, northern Thailand
• Emperor Meiji (1852–1912), Emperor of Japan
• Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418)
• Mithridates II of Parthia (died 88 BC), ruler of the Parthian Empire (in present day Iran)
• Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 BC–63 BC), ruler of Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom
• Mstislav I of Kiev (1076–1132), Grand Prince of Kievan Rus
• Naresuan (1555–1605), King of Ayutthaya
• Narai (1633–1688), King of Ayutthaya (in what is now modern Thailand)
• Odo the Great (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine
• Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912-973)
• K'inich Janaab' Pakal (603-683), ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque
• Parakramabahu I of Polonnaruwa (1123–1186), King of Sri Lanka
• Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia (died 1075), King of Croatia
• Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia
• Peter III of Aragon (1239–1285), King of Aragon and King of Sicily
• Pompey (106 BC-48 BC), military and political leader of the late Roman Republic, rival of Julius Caesar
• Radama I (1793–1828), first king of greater Madagascar
• Raja Raja Chola I (c. 947-1014), Indian emperor of the Cholas.^[6][7][8]
• Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014–1044), Tamil King of India
• Ramesses II (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC), considered the greatest pharaoh of Ancient Egypt
• Ram Khamhaeng (around 1237 to 1247-1298), King of Sukhothai (in present day Thailand)
• Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona (1082–1131), also Count of Provence and various other counties
• Rhodri the Great (c. 820–878), King of Gwynedd (in present day Wales)
• Roman the Great (after 1160-1205), Grand Prince of Kiev
• Saladin (c. 1138-1193), Kurdish Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and victor over the Crusaders
• Samudragupta (c. 335–375), ruler of the Gupta empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Sancho III of Navarre (c. 992-1035), King of Kingdom of Navarre
• Sargon of Akkad (died c. 2215 BC), ruler of the Akkadian Empire
• Sejong the Great (1397–1450), Korean king^[9]
• Shapur II (309-379), king of the Sassanid Empire, Persia
• Simeon I of Bulgaria (864/865-927), ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire
• Stephen III of Moldavia (1433–1504), Prince of Moldavia (Romania)
• Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (c. 1308-1355), King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks
• Taksin (1734–1782), King of the Thonburi Kingdom (Thailand)
• Tamar (1160-1123), Queen of the Georgian Empire
• Timur (1336–1405), better known as Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Dynasty
• Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090–1151), Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV, Count of Champagne and of Brie
• Theodoric the Great (454-526), King of the Ostrogoths, regent of the Visigoths and a viceroy of the Byzantine Empire
• Theodosius I (347-395), Roman emperor
• Tigranes the Great (140-55 BC), Emperor of Armenia
• Tiridates III of Armenia (285-339), King of Armenia
• Umar (c. 586 to 590–644), second caliph of the Muslim Empire
• Valdemar I of Denmark (1131–1182), King of Denmark
• Valentinian I (364-375), Roman Emperor
• Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015), ruler of Kievan Rus
• Vytautas (c. 1350-1430), archduke of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy
• William I, Count of Burgundy (1020–1087), Count of Burgandy and Mâcon
• William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969-1030), also Count of Poitou
• Xerxes I (519-465 BC), King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia)
• Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), legendary ruler in ancient China

Religious figures[link]

• Abraham the Great of Kashkar (ca. 492-586), monk and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East
• Abraham Kidunaia (died c. 366, hermit, priest, and Christian saint of Mesopotamia
• Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280), medieval German philosopher and theologian
• Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), early Christian saint of Egypt
• Babai the Great (c. 551–628), Assyrian church leader
• Basil of Caesarea (330-379), Greek bishop and theologian
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the previous section)
• Euthymius the Great (377-473), abbot and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint
• Gertrude the Great (1256-c. 1302), German Benedictine, mystic, theologian and Roman Catholic saint
• Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604)
• Hiyya the Great, 3rd-century rabbi, Palestine
• Pope John Paul II (1920–2005)
• Pope Leo I (c. 391 or 400-461)
• Macarius of Egypt (c. 300-391), Egyptian hermit
• Pope Nicholas I (c. 800-867)
• Photius I of Constantinople (c. 810–c. 893), Eastern Orthodox saint and Patriarch of Constantinople
• William of Maleval (died 1157), founder of the Catholic congregation of Williamites

Other[link]

• Beli Mawr, a figure in medieval Welsh literature and genealogies
• Emmy the Great, folk singer
• Matteo Rosso the Great, Roman politician and father of Pope Nicholas III
• Prokop the Great, Hussite general in Bohemia

See also[link]

• Epithet
• List of monarchs by nickname
• List of nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility: G-I
• James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus
• Ajax (mythology), called Ajax the Greater
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whose common honorific "Mahatma" means "Great Soul"

Notes[link]

Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet, youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs).^[1]

Poetry[link]

Corso's first volume of poetry The Vestal Lady on Brattle was published in 1955 (with the assistance of students at Harvard, where he had been auditing classes). Corso was the second of the Beats to be published (after only Kerouac's The Town and the City), despite being the youngest. His poems were first published in the Harvard Advocate. In 1958, Corso had an expanded collection of poems published as number 8 in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series: Gasoline & The Vestal Lady on Brattle. Of his many notable poems are: "Bomb" (a "concrete poem" formatted in typed paper slips of verse, arranged in the shape of a mushroom cloud), "Elegiac Feelings American" of the recently deceased Jack Kerouac, and "Marriage", a humorous meditation on the institution, perhaps his signature poem. And later in life, "The Whole Mess Almost".

"Marriage" excerpt:

Should I get married? Should I be good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?
Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky—
When she introduces me to her parents
back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,
should I sit with my knees together on their 3rd degree sofa
and not ask Where's the bathroom?
How else to feel other than I am,
often thinking Flash Gordon soap—
O how terrible it must be for a young man
seated before a family and the family thinking
We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!
After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?
Should I tell them? Would they like me then?
Say All right get married, we're losing a daughter
but we're gaining a son—
And should I then ask Where's the bathroom?
O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends
and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded
just wait to get at the drinks and food—^[2]

In "Marriage" Corso tackles the possibilities of marriage. It was among his "title poems", with "Power", "Army" and others that explore a concept. "Should I get married?" (1), the speaker begins. Could marriage bring about the results that the speaker is looking for? Coming "home to her" (54) and sitting "by the fireplace and she in the kitchen/aproned young and lovely wanting my baby/ and so happy about me she burns the roast beef" (55-57). Idealizing marriage and fatherhood initially, Corso's speaker embraces reality in the second half of the poem admitting, "No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father" (84). Recognizing that the act of marriage is in itself a form of imprisonment, "No, can’t imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream" (103), Corso's speaker acknowledges in the end that the possibility of marriage is not promising for him. Bruce Cook from the book The Beat Generation^[3] illuminates Corso's skill at juxtaposing humor and serious critical commentary, "Yet as funny and entertaining as all this certainly is, it is not merely that, for in its zany way ‘Marriage’ offers serious criticism of what is phony about a sacred American institution."

Corso's sometimes surreal word mash ups— "forked clarinets", "Flash Gordon soap", "werewolf bathtubs" —caught the attention of many.

It was "Bomb" and "Marriage" that caught the eye of a young Bob Dylan, still in Minnesota. Dylan said, “The Gregory Corso poem 'Bomb' was more to the point and touched the spirit of the times better— a wasted world and totally mechanized— a lot of hustle and bustle— a lot of shelves to clean, boxes to stack. I wasn’t going to pin my hopes on that.”^[4]

In contrast to Corso's use of marriage as a synecdoche for a Beat view of women, postmodern feminist poet Hedwig Gorski chronicles a night with Corso in her poem "Could not get Gregory Corso out of my Car" (1985, Austin, Texas) showing the womanizing typical for heterosexual Beat behavior.^[5] Gorski criticizes the Beat movement for tokenism towards women writers and their work, with very few exceptions, including Anne Waldman, and post-beats like Diane DiPrima and herself. Male domination and womanizing along with tokenism by its major homosexual members characterize the Beat Literary Movement. Beats scoffed at the Feminist Movement which offered liberalizing social and professional views of women and their works as did the Beat Movement for men, especially homosexuals.^[6] Corso however always defended women's role in the Beat Generation, often citing his lover Hope Savage as a primary influence on him and Allen Ginsberg.

Ted Morgan described Corso's place in the beat literary world: "If Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs were the Three Musketeers of the movement, Corso was their D'Artagnan, a sort of junior partner, accepted and appreciated, but with less than complete parity. He had not been in at the start, which was the alliance of the Columbia intellectuals with the Times Square hipsters. He was a recent adherent, although his credentials were impressive enough to gain him unrestricted admittance ..."^[7] It has taken 50 years and the death of the other Beats, for Corso to be fully appreciated as a poet of equal stature and significance.

Early life[link]

Born Nunzio Corso at St. Vincent's hospital (later called the Poets' hospital after Dylan Thomas died there), Corso later selected the name "Gregory" as a confirmation name.^{[citation needed]} Within Little Italy and its community he was "Nunzio", while he dealt with others as "Gregory". He often would use "Nunzio" as a short for "Annunziato", the announcing angel Gabriel, hence a poet. Corso identified with not only Gabriel but also the Greco Roman God Hermes, the divine messenger.

Corso's mother, Michelina Corso (born Colonna) was born in Miglianico, Abruzzo, Italy, and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine, with her mother and four other sisters. At 16, she married Sam Corso, a first generation Italian American, also teenage, and gave birth to Nunzio Corso the same year. They lived at the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, the heart of Greenwich Village and upper Little Italy.

Childhood[link]

Sometime in his first year, Corso's mother mysteriously abandoned him, leaving him at the New York Foundling Home, a branch of the Catholic Church Charities. Corso's father, Sam "Fortunato" Corso, a gruff garment center worker, found the infant and promptly put him in a foster home. Michelina came to New York but was threatened for her life by Sam. One of Michelina's sisters was married to a New Jersey mobster who offered to give Michelina her "vengeance," that is to kill Sam. Michelina declined and returned to Trenton without her child. Sam consistently told Corso that his mother had returned to Italy and deserted the family. He was also told that she was a prostitute and was "disgraziata" (disgraced) and forced into Italian exile. Sam told the young boy several times, "I should have flushed you down the toilet." It was 67 years until Corso learned the truth of his mother's disappearance.

Corso spent the next 11 years in foster care in at least five different homes. His father rarely visited him. When he did, Corso was often abused: "I'd spill jello and the foster home people would beat me. Then my father would visit and he'd beat me again— a double whammy." As a foster child, Corso was among thousands that the Church aided during the Depression, with the intention of reconstituting families as the economy picked up. Corso went to Catholic parochial schools, was an altar boy and a gifted student. His father, in order to avoid the military draft, brought Gregory home in 1941. Nevertheless, Sam Corso was drafted ^[8] and shipped overseas.

Corso, then alone, became a homeless child on the streets of Little Italy. For warmth he slept in subways in the winter, and then slept on rooftops during the summer. He continued to attend Catholic school, not telling authorities he was living on the streets. With "permission", he stole breakfast bread from Vesuvio Bakery, on Leroy Street in Little Italy. Street food stall merchants would give him food in exchange for running errands.

Adolescence[link]

At age 13, Corso was asked to deliver a toaster to a neighbor. While he was running the errand, a passerby offered money for the toaster, and Corso sold it. He used the money to buy a tie and white shirt, and dressed up to see the film "The Song of Bernadette", about the mystical appearance of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes. On returning from the movie, the police apprehended him. Corso claimed he was seeking a miracle, namely, to find his mother. Corso had a life long affection for saints and holy men: "They were my only heroes." Nonetheless, he was arrested for petty larceny and incarcerated in The Tombs, New York's infamous jail. Corso, even though only thirteen years old, was celled next to an adult criminally insane murderer who had stabbed his wife repeatedly with a screwdriver. The exposure left Corso traumatized. Neither Corso's stepmother nor his paternal grandmother would post his $50 bond. With his own mother missing and unable to make bail, he remained in the Tombs.

Later, in 1944 during a New York blizzard, a fourteen-year-old freezing Corso broke into his tutor's office for warmth, and fell asleep on a desk. He slept through the blizzard and was arrested for breaking and entering and booked into the Tombs a second time, with adults. Terrified of other inmates, he was sent to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital Center and later released.

At age seventeen, on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, Corso broke into a tailor shop and stole an over-sized suit to dress for a date. Police records indicate he was arrested two blocks from the shop. He spent the night in the Tombs and was arraigned the next morning as an 18-year-old with prior offenses. No longer a "youthful offender", he was given a two to three years sentence to Clinton State Prison, in Dannemora, New York, on the Canadian border. It was New Jersey State's toughest prison, the site of the state's electric chair. Corso always has expressed a curious gratitude for Clinton making him a poet.

His second book of poems Gasoline, is dedicated to "the angels of Clinton Prison who, in my seventeenth year, handed me, from all the cells surrounding me, books of illumination."^[9]

Interestingly, Clinton later became known as the "poets prison", as rap poets Tupak Shakur, Fifty Cent, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and others served time there.

Corso at Clinton Correctional[link]

While being transported to Clinton, Corso, terrified of prison and the prospect of rape, concocted a story of why he was sent there. He told hardened Clinton inmates he and two friends had devised the wild plan of taking over New York City by means of walkie-talkies, projecting a series of improbable and complex robberies. Communicating by walkie-talkie, each of the three boys took up an assigned position— one inside the store to be robbed, one outside on the street to watch for the police and a third, Corso, the master-planner, in a small room nearby dictating the orders. According to Corso, he was in the small room giving the orders when the police came. In light of Corso's youth, his imaginative yarn earned him bemused attention at Clinton.

The Mafia wing of Clinton was under the direction of inmate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Mafia Capo di Tutti Capos, the character on which Mario Puzo and Francis Coppola based "The Godfather". Richard Biello, a Capo, asked Corso who he was connected with, that is, what New York crime family did he come from, talking such big crimes as walkie talkie robberies... "I'm independent!", Corso shot back, hoping to keep his distance from the Mob inmates. A week later, in the prison showers, Corso was grabbed by a handful of inmates, and the 18-year-old was about to be raped. Biello happened in and commented, "Corso! You don't look so independent right now." Biello waved off the would-be rapists, afraid of Mafia reprisals.

Thus Corso fell under the protection of powerful Mafioso inmates, and became something of a mascot because he was the youngest inmate in the prison and he was entertaining. Corso would cook the steaks and veal brought from the outside by Mafia underlings in the "courts"— 55 gallon barrel barbecues and picnic tables— assigned to the influential prisoners. Clinton also had a ski run right in the middle of "the yards" and Corso learned to downhill ski and taught the Mafiosi. He entertained his mobster elders as a court jester, quick with ripostes and jokes. Corso would often cite the three propositions given him by a Mafia capo: "1) Don't serve time, let time serve you. 2) Don't take your shoes off because with a 2 -3 you're walking right out of here. 3) When you're in the yard talking to three guys, see four. See yourself. Dig yourself."

Interestingly, Corso was jailed in the very cell just months before vacated by Charles "Lucky" Luciano. While imprisoned, Luciano had donated an extensive library to the prison^{[citation needed]}. The cell was also equipped with a phone and self controlled lighting as Luciano was, from prison, cooperating with the U.S. Government's wartime effort, providing Mafia aid in policing the New York waterfront, and later helping in Naples, Italy through his control of the Camorra. In this special cell, Corso read after lights-out thanks to a light specially positioned for Luciano to work late. Corso was encouraged to read and study by his Cosa Nostra mentors, who recognized his genius.

There, Corso began writing poetry. He studied the Greek and Roman classics, and consumed encyclopedias and dictionaries. He credited the "Story of Civilization", Will and Ariel Durant's ground-breaking compendium of history and philosophy for his general education and philosophical sophistication.

Release and return to New York City[link]

In 1951, twenty-one-year-old Gregory Corso worked in the garment center by day, and at night was a mascot yet again, this time at one of Greenwich Village's first Lesbian bars, the Pony Stable Inn. The women gave Corso a table at which he wrote poetry. One night a Columbia College student, Allen Ginsberg, happened into the Pony Stable and saw Corso... "he was good looking, and wondered if he was gay, or what." Corso, who was definitely not gay, was not uncomfortable with same sex come-ons after his time in prison, and thought he could score a beer off Ginsberg. He showed Ginsberg some of the poems he was writing, and some from prison, and Ginsberg immediately recognized Corso as "spiritually gifted". One poem described a woman who sunbathed in a window bay across the street from Corso's room on 12th Street. Astonishingly, the woman happened to be Ginsberg's erstwhile girl friend, with whom he lived in one of his rare forays into heterosexuality. Ginsberg invited Corso back to their apartment and asked the woman if she would satisfy Corso's sexual curiosity. She agreed, but Corso, still a virgin, got too nervous as she disrobed and he ran from the apartment, struggling with his pants. Ginsberg and Corso became fast friends. All his life, Ginsberg had a sexual attraction to Corso, which remained unrequited.

Corso joined the Beat circle and was adopted by its co-leaders, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who saw in the young street-wise writer a potential for expressing the poetic insights of a generation wholly separate from those preceding it. At this time he developed a crude and fragmented mastery of Shelley, Marlowe, and Chatterton. Shelley's "A Defence of Poetry" (1840), with its emphasis on the ability of genuine poetic impulse to stimulate "unapprehended combinations of thought" that led to the "moral improvement of man", prompted Corso to develop a theory of poetry roughly consistent with that of the developing principles of the Beat poets. For Corso, poetry became a vehicle for change, a way to redirect the course of society by stimulating individual will.^[10] He referred to Shelley often as a "Revolutionary of Spirit", which he considered Ginsberg and himself to be.

Cambridge[link]

In 1954, Corso moved to Cambridge, where several important poets, including Edward Marshall and John Wieners, were experimenting with the poetics of voice. The center for Corso's life there was not "the School of Boston", as these poets were called, but Harvard University's Widener Library, where he spent his days reading the great works of poetry and also auditing classes in the Greek and Roman Classics. Corso's appreciation of the classics had come from the Durants' books which he had read in prison. At Harvard he considered becoming a classics scholar. Corso, penniless, lived on a dorm room floor in Elliott house, welcomed by students Peter Sourian, John Sedgwick (brother of Edie), and Paul Grand. He would dress up for dinner and not be noticed. Members of the elite Porcellian Club reported Corso to the Harvard administration as an interloper. Dean Archibald MacLeish met with Corso intending to expel him, but Corso showed him his poems and MacLeish relented and allowed Corso to be a non-matriculating student— a poet in residence. Corso's first published poems appeared in the Harvard Advocate in 1954, and his play In This Hung-up Age—concerning a group of Americans who, after their bus breaks down midway across the continent, are trampled by buffalo— was performed by the esteemed Poets' Theater the following year, along with T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral".

Harvard and Radcliffe students, notably Grand, Sourian and Sedgewick, underwrote the printing expenses of Corso's first book, The Vestal Lady on Brattle, and Other Poems. The poems featured in the volume are usually considered apprentice works heavily indebted to Corso's reading. They are, however, unique in their innovative use of jazz rhythms— most notably in "Requiem for 'Bird' Parker, Musician", which many call the strongest poem in the book— cadences of spoken English, and hipster jargon. Corso once explained his use of rhythm and meter in an interview with Gavin Selerie for Riverside Interviews: "My music is built in— it's already natural. I don't play with the meter." In other words, Corso believes the meter must arise naturally from the poet's voice; it is never consciously chosen.

In a review of The Vestal Lady on Brattle for Poetry, Reuel Denney asked whether "a small group jargon" such as bop language would "sound interesting" to those who were not part of that culture. Corso, he concluded, "cannot balance the richness of the bebop group jargon... with the clarity he needs to make his work meaningful to a wider-than-clique audience." Ironically, within a few years, that "small group jargon", the Beat lingo, became a national idiom: featuring words such as "man", "cool", "dig", "chick", "hung up", etc.

Despite Corso's reliance on traditional forms and archaic diction, he remained a street-wise poet, described by Bruce Cook in The Beat Generation as "an urchin Shelley". Gaiser suggested that Corso adopted "the mask of the sophisticated child whose every display of mad spontaneity and bizarre perception is consciously and effectively designed"— as if he is in some way deceiving his audience. But the poems at their best are controlled by an authentic, distinctive, and enormously effective voice that can range from sentimental affection and pathos to exuberance and dadaist irreverence toward almost anything except poetry itself.^[11]

San Francisco, Howl and the Beat Phenomenon[link]

Corso and Ginsberg decided to head to San Francisco, separately. Corso wound up temporarily in Los Angeles and worked at the L.A. Examiner news morgue. Ginsberg was delayed in Denver. They were drawn by reports of an iconoclast circle of poets, including Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch. An older literary mentor, the socialist writer Kenneth Rexroth, lent his apartment as a Friday night literary salon (Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams, an old friend of Rexroth's, had given him an introductory letter).

Wally Hedrick [13] wanted to organize the famous Six Gallery reading, and Ginsberg wanted Rexroth to serve as master of ceremonies, in a sense to bridge generations. Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder read on October 7, 1955 before 100 people (including Kerouac, up from Mexico City). Lamantia read poems of his late friend John Hoffman. At his first public reading Ginsberg performed the just finished first part of "Howl". Gregory Corso arrived late the next day, missing the historical reading, at which he had been scheduled to read.

The Six Gallery was a success and the evening led to many more readings by the now locally famous Six Gallery poets. It was also a marker of the beginning of the West Coast Beat movement, since the 1956 publication of "Howl" (City Lights Pocket Poets, no. 4) and its obscenity trial in 1957 brought it to nationwide attention.

Ginsberg and Corso hitchhiked from San Francisco, visiting Henry Miller in Big Sur, and stopped off in Los Angeles. As guests of Anaïs Nin and writer Lawrence Lipton, Corso and Ginsberg gave a reading to a gathering of LA literati. Ginsberg took the audience off-guard, by proclaiming himself and Corso as poets of absolute honesty, and they both proceeded to strip bare naked of clothes, shocking even the most avant-garde of the audience.

Corso and Ginsberg then hitchhiked to Mexico City to visit Kerouac who was holed up in a room above a whorehouse, writing a novel, "Tristessa". After a three-week stay in Mexico City, Ginsberg left, and Corso waited for a plane ticket. His lover, Hope Savage, convinced her father, mayor of Charleston, S.C., to send Corso a plane ticket to Washington, D.C. Corso had been invited by Library of Congress poet (precursor to U.S. Poet Laureate) Randall Jarrell and his wife Mary, to live with them, and become Jarrell's poetic protege. Jarrell, unimpressed with the other Beats, found Corso's work to be original and believed he held great promise. Corso stayed with the Jarrells' for two months, enjoyed the first taste of family life ever. However Kerouac showed up and crashed at the Jarrells', often drunk and loud, and tempted Corso to carousing. Corso was disinvited by the Jarrells and returned to New York.

To Paris and the 'Beat Hotel'[link]

In 1957, Allen Ginsberg voyaged with Peter Orlovsky to visit Williams S. Burroughs in Morocco. They were joined by Kerouac, who was researching the French origins of his family. Corso, already in Europe, joined them in Tangiers and as a group, they made an ill fated attempt to take Burroughs' fragmented writings and organize them into a text (which later would become "Naked Lunch"). Burroughs was strung out on heroin and became jealous of Ginsberg's unrequited attraction for Corso, who left Tangiers for Paris. In Paris, Corso introduced Ginsberg and Orlovsky to a Left Bank lodging house above a bar at 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur, that he named the Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by William Burroughs and others. It was a haven for young expatriate painters, writers and musicians. There, Ginsberg began his epic poem Kaddish, Corso composed his poems Bomb and Marriage, and Burroughs (with Brion Gysin's help) put together Naked Lunch from previous writings. This period was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who moved in at about the same time, and took pictures of the residents of the hotel until it closed in 1963.^[12]

Corso's Paris sojurn resulted in his third volume of Poetry, :"The Happy Birthday of Death" (1960), "Minutes to Go (1960, visual poetry deemed "cut ups") with William S. Burroughs, Sinclair Beiles, and Brion Gysin, "The American Express " (1961, an Olympia Press novel), and Long Live Man (1962, poetry). Corso fell out with his publisher of Gasoline, Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Bookstore, who objected to "Bomb", a position Ferlinghetti later rued and for which he apologized. Corso's work found a strong reception at New Directions Publishing, founded by James Laughlin who heard of Corso through Harvard connections. New Directions was considered the premier publisher of poetry with Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Thomas Merton, Denise Levertov, James Agee, and ironically, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

While in Europe Corso searched for his lover, Hope Savage, who had disappeared from New York, saying she was headed to Paris. He visited Rome and Greece, sold encyclopedias in Germany, hung out with jazz trumpeter Chet Baker in Amsterdam, and with Ginsberg set the staid Oxford Union in turmoil with his reading of "Bomb", which Oxford students mistakenly believed was pro-nuclear war (as had Ferlinghetti), while they and other campuses were engaged in "ban the bomb" demonstrations. A student threw a shoe at Corso, and both he and Ginsberg left before Ginsberg could read "Howl".

Corso returned to New York in 1958, amazed that he and his compatriots had become famous, or notorious, emerging literary figures.

Return to New York - The "Beatniks"[link]

In late 1958, Corso reunited with Ginsberg and Orlovsky. They were astonished that before they left for Europe they had sparked a social movement, which San Francisco columnist Herb Caen called, "Beat-nik", combining "beat" with the Russian "Sputnik", as if to suggest that the Beat writers were both "out there" and vaguely Communist.

San Francisco's obscenity trial of Lawrence Ferlinghetti for publishing Ginsberg's "Howl" had ended in an acquittal and the national notoriety made "The Beats" famous, adored and ridiculed.

Upon their return, Ginsberg, Corso, Kerouac and Burroughs were published in the venerable "Chicago Review" but before the volume was sold, University of Chicago President Robert Hutchins deemed it pornographic and had all copies confiscated. The Chicago editors promptly resigned and started an alternative literary magazine, "The Big Table". Ginsberg and Corso took a bus from New York for the "Big Table" launch, which again propelled them into the national spotlight. Studs Terkel's interview of the two was a madcap romp which set off a wave of publicity. Controversy followed them and they relished making the most of their outlaw and pariah image. Time and Life Magazine had a particular dislike of the two, hurling invective and insult that Corso and Ginsberg hoped they could bootstrap into yet more publicity. The Beat Generation (so named by Kerouac) was galvanized and young people began dressing with berets, toreador pants, and beards and carrying bongos. Corso would quip that he never grew a beard, didn't own a beret, and couldn't fathom bongos.

Corso and Ginsberg traveled widely to college campuses, reading together. Ginsberg's "Howl" provided the serious fare and Corso's "Bomb" and "Marriage" provided the humor and bonhomie. New York's Beat scene erupted and spilled over to the burgeoning folk music craze in the Village, Corso's and Ginsberg's home ground. An early participant was a newly arrived Bob Dylan: “I came out of the wilderness and just fell in with the Beat scene, the Bohemian, the Be Bop crowd. It was all pretty connected”. “It was Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti... I got in at the tail end of that and it was magic." ~Bob Dylan in America.

During the early 1960s Corso married Sally November, an English teacher who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Shaker High School, and graduated from the University of Michigan. At first, Corso mimicked "Marriage" and moved to Cleveland to work in Sally's father's florist shop. Then the couple lived in Manhattan and Sally was known to Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Larry Rivers and others in the beat circle at that time. The marriage, while a failure, did create a child, Miranda Corso. Corso did maintain contact with Sally and his daughter sporadically during his lifetime. Sally, who subsequently remarried, resides on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and has kept contact with one of the iconic females associated with the Beat movement, Hettie Jones.

Corso married two other times and had a son Nile, and daughter Cybelle and later a son Max. Throughout his life, Corso remained in touch with his children, and was fiercely protective of them, forbidding any access to journalists, writers and later his film biographer, Gustave Reininger.

As the Beats were supplanted in the 1960s by the Hippies and other youth movements, Corso experienced his own wilderness years. He struggled with alcohol and drugs. He later would comment that his addictions masked the pain of having been abandoned and emotionally deprived and abused. Poetry was his purest means of transcending his traumas but substance abuse threatened his poetic output. He lived in Rome for many years, and later married in Paris and taught in Greece, all the while traveling widely. He strangely remained close to the Catholic Church as critic and a loose identification as a lapsed Catholic. His collection, "Dear Fathers" was several letters commenting on needed reforms in the Vatican.

In 1969, Corso published a volume "Elegiac Feelings American", whose lead poem dedicated to the recently deceased Jack Kerouac is regarded by some critics as Corso's best poem. In 1981 he published poems mostly written while residing in Europe, titled "Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit".

In 1972, Rose Holton and her sister met Corso on the second day of their residence at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City:

“He sold us on the Chelsea and sold us on himself. Everything that life can throw at you was reflected in his very being. It was impossible for him to be boring. He was outrageous, always provocative, alternately full of indignation or humor, never censoring his words or behavior. But the main thing is that Gregory was authentic. He could play to the audience, but he was never a phony poseur. He was the real deal. He once explained the trajectory of creative achievement: “There is talent, there is genius, then there is the divine.” Gregory inhabited the divine. "^[13]

Later years[link]

In later years, Corso disliked public appearances and became irritated with his own "Beat" celebrity. He never allowed a biographer to work in any "authorized" fashion, and only posthumously was a volume of letters published under the specious artifice of "An Accidental Autobiography". He did however agree to allow filmmaker Gustave Reininger to make a cinema verite documentary, Corso: The Last Beat, about him.

After Allen Ginsberg's death, Corso was depressed and despondent. Gustave Reininger convinced him to go "on the road" to Europe and retrace the early days of "the Beats" in Paris, Italy and Greece. While in Venice, Corso expressed on film his lifelong concerns about not having a mother, and living such an uprooted childhood. Corso became curious about where in Italy his mother, Michelina Colonna, might be buried. His father's family had always told him that his mother had returned to Italy, a disgraced woman, a whore. Filmmaker Gustave Reininger quietly launched a search for Corso's mother's Italian burial place. In an astonishing turn of events, Reininger found Corso's mother Michelina not dead, but alive; and not in Italy, but in Trenton, New Jersey. Corso was reunited with his mother on film. He discovered that she at age 17 had been almost fatally brutalized (all her front teeth punched out) and was sexually abused by her teenage husband, his father. On film, Michelina explained that at the height of the Depression, with no trade or job, she had no choice but to give her son to the care of Catholic Charities. After she had established a new life working in a restaurant in New Jersey, she had attempted to find him, to no avail. The father, Sam Corso, had blocked even Catholic Charities from disclosing the boy's whereabouts. Living modestly, she lacked the means to hire a lawyer to find her son. She worked as a waitress in a sandwich shop in the New Jersey State Office building in Trenton. She eventually married the cook, Paul Davita, and started a new family. Her child Gregory remained a secret between Michelina and her mother and sisters, until Reininger found them.

Corso and his mother quickly developed a relationship which lasted until his death, which preceded hers. They both spent hours on the phone and the initial forgiveness displayed in the film became a living reality. Corso and Michelina loved to gamble and on several occasions took vacations to Atlantic City for black jack at the casinos. Corso always lost while Michelina fared better and would stake him with her winnings.

Corso's grave, in Rome (Italy).

In Corso: The Last Beat, Corso claimed that he was healed in many ways by meeting his mother and saw his life coming full circle. He began to work productively on a new, long delayed volume of poetry, "The Golden Egg". Shortly thereafter, Corso discovered he had irreversible prostate cancer. He died of the disease in Minnesota on January 17, 2001. In the film, "Corso: The Last Beat" a dramatic scene was shot in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, at the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Off camera, Corso showed Reininger a small patch of open ground and said that this is where he wished to be buried. He had always sought good company and felt he couldn't top Shelley and Keats. Reininger was discouraging as the Cemetery had been closed to newcomers since the mid-century. After Corso's death, a Roman friend Vittorio Terracini and Reininger lobbied the Roman authorities for special permission. Corso's ashes were deposited, just as he wanted, at the foot of the grave of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in the Cimitero Acattolico, the Protestant Cemetery, Rome. He wrote his own epitaph:

Spirit
is Life
It flows thru
the death of me
endlessly
like a river
unafraid
of becoming
the sea

Quotes[link]

• "… a tough young kid from the Lower East Side who rose like an angel over the roof tops and sang Italian song as sweet as Caruso and Sinatra, but in words… Amazing and beautiful, Gregory Corso, the one and only Gregory, the Herald." — Jack Kerouac – Introduction to Gasoline
• "Corso's a poet's Poet, a poet much superior to me. Pure velvet... whose wild fame's extended for decades around the world from France to China, World Poet. — Allen Ginsberg "On Corso's Virtues"
• "Gregory's voice echoes through a precarious future.... His vitality and resilience always shine through, with a light this is more than human: the immortal light of his Muse. ... Gregory is indeed one of the Daddies." — William S. Burroughs
• "The most important of the beat poets... a really true poet with an original voice" — Nancy Peters, editor of City Lights
• "Other than Mr. Corso, Gregory was all you ever needed to know. He defined the name by his every word or act. Always succinct, he never tried. Once he called you 'My Ira' or 'My Janine' or 'My Allen'. he was forever 'Your Gregory'." — Ira Cohen
• "...It comes, I tell you, immense with gasolined rags and bits of wire and old bent nails, a dark arriviste, from a dark river within." — Gregory Corso, How Poetry Comes to Me (epigraph of Gasoline)
• "They, that unnamed "they", they've knocked me down but I got up. I always get up-and I swear when I went down quite often I took the fall; nothing moves a mountain but itself. They, I've long ago named them me." — Gregory Corso

References[link]

Other sources[link]

• Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (hc);

Bibliography[link]

• The Vestal Lady and Other Poems (1955, poetry)
• This Hung-Up Age (1955, play)
• Gasoline (1958, poetry)
• Bomb (1958, poetry)
• The Happy Birthday of Death (1960, poetry)
• Minutes to Go (1960, visual poetry) with Sinclair Beiles, William S. Burroughs, and Brion Gysin.
• The American Express (1961, novel)
• Long Live Man (1962, poetry)
• There is Yet Time to Run Back through Life and Expiate All That's been Sadly Done (1965, poetry)
• Elegiac Feelings American (1970, poetry)
• The Night Last Night was at its Nightest (1972, poetry)
• Earth Egg (1974, poetry)
• Writings from OX (1979, with interview by Michael Andre)
• Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit (1981, poetry)
• Mind Field (1989, poetry)
• Mindfield: New and Selected Poems (1989, poetry)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gregory Corso

• [2]
• Gregory Corso biography from the Museum of American Poetics
• Gregory Corso (1930–2001) from Modern American Poetry
• Gregory Corso Papers at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University
• Gregory Corso, 1930–2001
• A Tribute to Gregory Corso in the Woodstock Journal
• memorial and gravesite,findagrave.com
• "Corso - The Last Beat." Feature documentary
• Guardian obituary
• Gregory Corso Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
• Bio and Poems - The Beat Page
• Works by or about Gregory Corso in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• January 2009 - Corso Exhibition
• January 2009 article on documentary Corso: The Last Beat
• Academy of American Poets
• Gregory Corso at the Internet Movie Database