WRITERS - RUSSIAN, GERMAN, SCANDINAVIAN & PAN-EUROPEANS

PATHWAY OF THE POET AS RAGING PRISONER OF HIMSELF:
Storyline: The genuine literary genius combines a windmill-tilting conservative consciousness with a penchant for incarceration and suffering in order to unleash his extraordinary capacity for capturing the full spirit of the human condition on paper in his ongoing role as creator of classic works.
Fyodor Doestoevski (1821-1881) - Russian writer. Outer: Father was a military surgeon, who was also alcoholic, avaricious and cruel. Sickly mother was good-natured and subservient. Raised in an autocratic home with a strong religious environment, and was an avid reader all his life. Educated by his parents, then attended private school, before completing his education at Military Engineers’ School. His mother died when he was 15, then father was killed by his own serfs when he was 18. Short and stocky. Became an officer, then a draftsman in the Engineer’s Corps, though retired a year later to devote himself fulltime to writing. Continually inept with money, which would start a lifelong pattern of gambling, failed business ventures and trying to support relatives, despite an adequate income from schooling onward. Suffered from epilepsy most of his life as well. His early work was praised by critics, but a lack of success with his short stories, turned him towards utopian socialism as a social panacea. Arrested for subversive activities in 1849, and spent 8 months in a dungeon under a death sentence. While standing on the scaffolding awaiting execution, he had his sentence transmuted to 4 years of hard labor in Siberia. Spent another 4 years in a military garrison and was given the rank of private, then finally had his commission restored. The period transformed him from a vain, literary prima donna into a serious artist, deepening his self-view, as well as his understanding of the world as a tragic stage for self-expression. His experiences would haunt him the rest of his life, while giving him an inexhaustible wealth of material. In his mid-30s, he married Maria Isaeva, the widow of a governmental official, and was permitted to return to Russia. Became a slavophile, and, also, because the Bible was the only literature allowed him during much of his exile, a devoted supporter of the Church. Visited western Europe, which confirmed his anti-western feelings, had a turbulent affair with a beautiful feminist writer, then returned to Germany and France to try to get help for his epilepsy. Traveled with his lover, who eventually spurned him, and gambled heavily, showing a pathological obsession with gaming, before coming home. In 1864 his wife and beloved brother died. Took on the responsibility for his stepson and brother’s family. Continued producing his extraordinary works, including the intensely psychological Crime and Punishment, and in his mid-40s, married his stenographer, a quarter of a century younger than himself, 4 children from union. His wife, Anna Grigoryevna, was devoted to him, with the necessary strength and practicality to deal with his compulsive financial failings. The duo traveled together a great deal, as he continued his output, often writing his novels as installments for Russian magazines. Best known for his last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, a tale of Russia’s conflicting psychological archetypes. His last years were the most harmonious and successful of his life, and when he died from a lung hemorrhage, he was hailed as a great man. Probably the singular most impressive novelist in the entire western canon. Inner: Depressive, neurotic, humorless, with a great fear of being buried alive. Changed from radical utopian to conservative upholder of orthodoxy, with a sweeping view of humanity, thanks to his grim range of experience. Had an extraordinary insight into human condition, and was a master of the intricacies of the human mind. Great believer in the moral righteousness of the Christ, as well as the Russian Orthodox Church. Snake eyes lifetime of inner and outer turmoil as an ongoing prisoner of his extraordinary sensibilities, allowing him to become a unique voice of 19th century Russia and all its divergent psychosocial and psychological struggles, as well as a taleteller for the ages. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) - Spanish writer. Outer: Son of a noble but poor Castilian apothecary surgeon. 4th of 7 children. His father was imprisoned for debts when he was 4, which brought much hardship to his upbringing. An avid reader, he studied in various Spanish cities, although attended no universities, before going to Italy in the service of a Spanish prelate there who became a cardinal. Medium height, pallid, and stocky. Very impressed with the cultural atmosphere of Renaissance Italy, which his later works would reflect, although he found his position stifling. Soon became a soldier, and was involved in the naval Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where he lost the use of his left hand, and was wounded in the chest. Spent 6 months in a hospital and then participated in various expeditions, before returning to Spain in his late 20s, only to be captured by pirates and taken to Algiers as a prisoner. Spent 5 years in captivity, trying repeatedly to escape. Bought and put on a galley heading for Constantinople when his ransom was finally paid by a friar and he was liberated. Returned home and married unhappily in his mid-30s to Catalina de Palacios, who was nearly 2 decades his junior, after having had a daughter by a mistress before the union. Despite military service and slavery, he was forced to earn a living as a tax collector and commissary. Exhibiting little skill for business, he was excommunicated for excessive zeal in wheat dealings and twice imprisoned for irregularities in his accounts. Began his literary career in his early 30s, although did not show his true genius until his later work. A mediocre poet, he was slightly more talented as a playwright, with a gift for satire, making him more prolific and successful in his latter endeavors, although he lacked a sense of dramatic instinct. An irregularity in his tax accounts led to a prison term in 1597, during which time he began to conceive his masterwork, Don Quixote de la Mancha, the tale of an errant knight tilting after windmills, which would become a world classic over the subsequent centuries. This meditation on realism and idealism, totally failed to impress the critics and the intellectual elite, but was popular in its day with the common reader, allowing it to go through several printings, and has continued unabated as one of the great works of the ages. The first part was published in 1605, and the second a decade later. Joined the Tertiaries of St. Francis just before his death, and seemingly achieved a serenity of spirit. Buried in the robes of that order. Inner: Idealistic, insightful, with a profound understanding of the human condition, and a proclivity, as in most of his lives, for incarceration, the better to dive deep into himself. Windmill-tilting lifetime of financial ineptitude, imprisonment and novelistic genius, a trinity of traits, he would continue to carry unbroken into the modern world. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1916-2008) - Russian writer. Outer: Father was an artillery officer in WW I who died in a firearms accident while serving in the White Russian Army, 6 months before his son was born. Mother was a stenographer and typist, who refused to remarry, barely supporting herself and her son. Had a deprived childhood, but loved reading and felt a great desire to serve Russia as a his/storian. Serious, politically aware as a youth, with a fascination with military strategy. Isolated and lonely, while his mother was often ill from TB. Felt all he read was a lie. Tall, dour and barrel-chested. Graduated Rostov Univ. majoring in mathematics and physics, and served at the front during WW II as an officer. Married in 1940 to a professor and research chemist, Natalya Reshetovskaya, demanding absolute submission from her, since he wanted nothing to interfere with his work, including children. Enthralled by Marx & Lenin, but was arrested for criticizing dictator Joseph Stalin in a letter to a friend. Spent 8 years in labor camps, and then an additional 3 years in exile, before rejoining Soviet society, far more of an intractable moralist and far less of a Marxist. During that time, he contracted cancer and spent several months in Tashkent, where he began seriously putting pen to paper. After his release, he was a teacher of math and physics in a small town, at which time he divorced. His ex-wife married and divorced an editor, and was suspected of being an informer against him, before they remarried in 1957. Outraged when she made a suicide attempt in 1970, asking how dare she do such a thing to him, he divorced her for good 3 years later. His longtime sense of sexual repression was finally released by an academic colleague, although their eros eventually scared him away. His first submitted story, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, detailed his Siberian experience, and mirrored the de-Stalinizing mood of the 1960s. Became a celebrity both at home and abroad through it. Dependent on female helpers to organize his manuscripts, and smuggle his works out of the country, although easily discarded them when they were no longer useful to him. Abandoned teaching, joined the Union of Soviet Writers, and began collecting material that would be a written witness to the Soviet political prison system, The Gulag Archipelago. Expelled from the writer’s union for his work, and was violently attacked in the Soviet press, although he was viewed as heroic by non-Russians for his grim determination. Survived an attempt by poison by the KGB to silence him in 1971. Finally arrested and deported in 1974. Settled first in Zurich with his much younger 2nd wife, Dmitrievna Svetlova, a math teacher, and 3 sons, 2 of whom were born before their union, as well as a stepchild. Spent 20 years in exile in the United States, 18 of them in virtual isolation, sending out broadsides against both the West for its perceived moral poverty and the Soviet revolution for its failure to complete its Christian mission. Eventually abandoned his literary view and style to become a strident and cantankerous polemicist and nothing more. Returned to Russia with a symbolic train ride across Siberia, then launched a TV show, which was later canceled, largely because of the sheer negativity of his character. After relegation to obscurity once again, he enjoyed a final hurrah when his earlier work, The First Circle, was made into a TV series in 2006, and the same year, his complete works, some 30 volumes, began to be released by Russian publishers. Died at home of heart failure. Inner: Fierce nationalist, stern, scolding, anti-Western. Far too serious and self-important for his own growth, drawing on his own hard experience for his insight, instead of the brilliant sense of psychological projection he would develop in later lives in earlier times in this series. Strong patriotic sense of the past. Self-imprisoning lifetime of searching for his spirituality through his unusual relationship with his country, which, like a capricious lover, has alternately incarcerated, rejected, embraced and laughed at him, while he has not yet developed the internal tools or sense of compassion and eros to transcend its hyperemotional response to him. Aleksandr Radischev (1749-1802) - Russian writer. Outer: Born into the Russian landed gentry. Educated at home his first 7 years, then was brought to Moscow by his father, and finally graduated from a cadet training school in St. Petersburg. Capped his education with 4 years at the Univ. of Leipzig in Germany. Returned to Russia with an anti-autocratic attitude and began his career as a government official, while joining the cultural forces of the Russian Enlightenment. Married, with 4 children. Served in the Russian Senate for 2 years, beginning in 1771 and on the Empress’s advisory council, and then as a civilian military prosecutor, which tuned him into the demands of the Russian serfs, as well as revolutionary activity in general. After home-publishing A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, in which he limned a country of venality at the top and heartbreak at the bottom, he was jailed and forced to repent his apostasies immediately. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to death by an official inquiry, then pardoned by the Empress Catherine II (Indira Gandhi) and instead, sent into exile to a remote penal settlement in Siberia. Continued writing during his exile, and was finally liberated by the death of the Empress in 1796, who had personally found his works repugnant and revolutionary. Allowed to return to a village near Moscow, where he remained under a parole arrangement. Fully rehabilitated with the accession of Alexander I (Mikhail Gorbachev), he was invited to participate in a commission for the planning of new legislation, but was unable to compromise or face further exile. Instead, he drank a cup of nitric acid, and, after an agonizing day, died. His works, however, would live on and on as an emblem of hope for his beloved but long beleaguered country. Inner: Highly moral and principled. Strong identification with the oppressed, and a compulsive truth-teller, no matter the circumstance. Self-abnegating lifetime of beginning his fascination with incarceration as a means to release his formidable insight and storytelling skills. Fernando de Rojas (c1475-1541) - Castilian writer and lawyer. Outer: From a family of Jewish conversos, forced to convert to Christianity in order to stay in Spain, although they may have continued their Sephardic Hebraic practices in secret, which ultimately brought him to the attention of the Inquisition. Studied at the Univ. of Salamanca, and eventually got a Bachelor of Law degree. His tragic romance, “La Celestina” was a forerunner of the Spanish literary renaissance, which he would embody his next life in this series as Cervantes, with this work seen by many as second in importance only to “Don Quixote,” in the early Iberian canon. Originally published it as an extended novel called “The Tragicomedy of Calixto and Melibea” in 1499. The story, in dialogue and play form, concerns the previous named pair, who use a go-between named Celestina, and all three wind up tragically perishing. The work combined popular speech with a classical style, while playing the idealistic off the realistic, themes he would pursue to universal readership in his Cervantes go-round. Married Leonor Alvarez de Montalban, who was also the child of conversos. Seven children survived to adulthood. Settled in Talavera in 1507, where he worked as a lawyer, and eventually became mayor towards the end of his life. Known in his lifetime for his respectable position, rather than his authorship. Inner: Materially adept, with a scathing view of the Christian world, seeing greed and selfishness as prime motivators, per his view of a society that had lost its romantic moorings and had nothing with which to replace them. Last literary go-round where prison wouldn’t fit strongly into his sense of disconnected self. Tilting at windmills lifetime of acting the upstanding citizen, while using his extraordinary literary talents to expose the corrosive death of high-minded pursuits by a society interested in only its own narrow pleasures and passions.Gottfried von Strassburg (c1170-1215?) - German poet. Outer: Almost nothing known about his life. As a member of the higher middle class, he probably held some sort of academic position. Conversant with Latin and French and had a good knowledge of Greek mythology. His fame rests on a single work, Tristan und Isolde, a love poem which is descriptive rather than dogmatic, treating the psychology of its subjects without moral judgment. Some 3,000 lines, or an estimated 1/4, of the poem survives. Inner: Extremely inventive, with a sure sense of his own unusual imaginative skills. Excellent insight into the emotional human condition, with a refined writing technique and a worldly sense of esthetics. Foundation lifetime of working in medieval literary traditions to thoroughly ground himself in the poetic arts of insight and description.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS ASCETIC ESTHETIC DEBAUCHEE:
Storyline: The philandering philosopher does continual battle with his extremes of behavior in trying to find a middle, moral ground through his ongoing obsessions with truth, light and darkness and his own larger-than-life vainglorious persona.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) - Russian writer. Outer: Son of landed nobility. His father had married a wealthy heiress and princess to bolster the family fortunes. The latter died when he was 2, while his sire passed 7 years later, and he also lost a younger brother through drowning. Lived with 2 different aunts and was given home tutoring. A mediocre student, despite a high intelligence, he preferred the lessons of the natural world, exhibiting a lifelong affinity for nature. Enrolled at Kazan Univ., where he led a dissolute existence, then, dissatisfied with schooling, returned to the estate he had recently inherited in 1847. Wished to help his serfs, but soon grew bored with country life. Sat for his final exams at St. Petersburg Univ., but withdrew after passing 2 subjects. Joined the army in 1852, wrote his first story, and saw considerable action in the Crimean War, which he would write about. After resigning his commission, he went to St. Petersburg, where he met the literary world of the time, while gambling and pursuing a highly promiscuous course of existence. Soon returned to his estate, then took 2 grand tours of Europe, studying educational systems the second time. Started a school for peasant children in 1859, emphasizing spontaneity rather than grades. Plain-faced, with a long black beard, which eventually turned white. After tiring of his sexual profligacy, he began a systematic search for a wife, marrying Sonya Bers, a woman of noble birth in his mid-30s. His volatile relationship with his spouse, an insecure person, was carefully recorded in diaries by both. Their relationship had started with her as his secretary, and became, in turn, tempestuous, bitter, and recriminating. Showed her his diaries of earlier seductions, which enflamed her jealousy, while he felt strongly she should take a traditional role as wife. 13 children from union, 8 of whom reached maturity. His masterwork was War and Peace, published between 1865 and 1869, where he viewed individuals as makers of his/story. Began questioning the meaning of life and underwent a spiritual crisis. Thought of suicide, while becoming more and more estranged from his wife, who, in turn, aroused his antipathy by becoming ever more possessive of him. His quandary reached its peak in his early 60s. Stopped his literary output and began writing on his sense of faith, a de-dogmatized Christianity. Rejected violence, capitalism and civilization-at-large, preferring a Rousseauesque communion with simple labor and the natural world. Began dressing as a peasant, and living out his ideals. Drew followers to his estate, but still could not countenance his privileged existence with his ideals and aesthetics. At the age of 83, after titanic battles with his wife and her continual threat of suicide, he decided to give up his worldly possessions. Left home with his physicians, but caught a feverish chill, and was taken off his train, dying in the stationmaster’s house of nervous exhaustion. His writing was largely autobiographical, exploring different aspects of his complex character. Long considered a master of realism. Inner: Lordly, vain, with a sweeping view of humanity. Dual character, that of wealthy land owner, and also anarchic Christian, as well as holding a puritanical temper and a sensualist’s instincts. Loved exercise and the outdoors, saw life in totally biological terms. Rationalist, prideful, highly sexed, but also harbored a sense of moral disgrace about his wanton urges. At war with any sense of inner peace lifetime of bringing himself full circle, from dissolute sensualist to totally ascetic anti-materialist. John Gardner (1933-1982) - American writer. Outer: Mother was a high school teacher of literature, father was a dairy farmer. His sire would sing poems to him to get him to sleep, while his mother would read Shakespeare aloud. Began writing at 8. At 12, he lost a younger brother, who died in a tractor accident that he caused. The incident opened his imagination, and he worked out his guilt through composing stories. Short, often engaged in suicidal fantasy throughout his life. Attended Washington Univ. in St. Louis and the the Univ. of Iowa. At 20, he married his 2nd cousin, Joan Patterson, a music teacher he had known his whole life. 2 children from the union, which ended when they separated after nearly a quarter century. His 2nd marriage to Elizabeth Rosenberg, a poet, also ended in divorce, thanks to his compulsive need for the approbation of seduction. Pursued a teaching career at the college level throughout the U.S., including San Francisco State, Oberlin College, Bennington College and the Univ. of Rochester. Wrote for 15 years before being published, feeling suicidal the whole time. Experimented with classic themes in his fiction, and was particularly concerned with the morality of art. Drew attention with Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf legend from the monster’s point of view. Also a gifted poet and critic, publishing several works on Old and Middle English Poetry. Stirred academic circles with his "On Moral Fiction," in 1978, in which he decried the pessimism in modern works, feeling that literature should be a celebration of life. A familiar long-haired figure on his motorcycle around campuses. Lifelong pipe smoker, considering it central to his creative output, wound up with colon cancer, and having it removed. Also an alcoholic, using it as fuel to feed his literary powers. Popular lecturer and gadfly, with a great love for Tolstoy’s work. Died in middle-age in a motorcycle accident, 4 days before he was to marry one of his graduate students, Susan Thornton. Inner: Rebellious, extremely opinionated, loved to tweak convention and stir controversy. Compelling, manipulative, charismatic and monstrously self-absorbed, particularly the more famous he became. Messianic about literature and the morality of art. Egregious ego lifetime of exploring themes that he would bring to the world stage by spinning back in time for a far more dramatic manifestations of himself, replete with the same early exiting brother. John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester (1647-1680) - English poet. Outer: Of noble birth, father was a close associate of Charles II (Peter O’Toole), during the English Civil Wars. Succeeded his sire to his earldom at the age of 9. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, received a pension from Charles II and traveled for 3 years on the continent. Returned to court, and became involved in numerous scandalous pranks, establishing himself as a wit and legendary rake, with numerous mistresses, as well as a fondness for inebriated states. Frequently banished from court because of his outspokenness, but always called back. Volunteered for naval service and served with distinction. Briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London for abducting an heiress, Elizabeth Malet, in 1665, whom he later married at 30, and was made gentleman of the bedchamber to the king, whose favorite he was. 4 children from the union. Also had a child with actress Elizabeth Barry (Ingrid Bergman). Despite his devil-may-care attitude, he was quite learned, with a devastatingly satirical pen. Wrote lyrical love poems, and numerous satires. Made ranger of Woodstock Forest, which gave him time to put quill to paper, but his earlier excesses had already ruined his health. Became more serious in later life, with strong interests in religion and philosophy. At life’s end, he experienced a religious conversion, recanted his past and burned his lewd writings, although that stance may have been the fanciful wish of his presumed converter, Gilbert Burnet (Harry S. Truman). Died of the ravages of syphilis, as well as other venereal diseases. Inner: Mixture of playboy, poet and philosopher, showing distinct talent for all 3. Roguish lifetime of spanning his behavioral bridge of debauchee, esthete and ascetic, while giving full play to his robust and fertile philosophic mind. Count Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola (1463-1494) - Italian humanist and writer. Outer: Born in the castle of his noble family, which claimed descent from the Roman Emperor Constantine (Mohandas Gandhi) as the youngest son of the prince of Mirandola, a territory that was later absorbed into a larger duchy. His father died when he was 4 and he and his brothers went on to hold great antagonism towards one another, with periods of reconciliation. Evinced both intelligence and a remarkable memory, and was sent at 14 to the Univ. of Bologna to study canon law. Uninspired, he went instead to the Univ. of Ferrara, where he took up philosophy and theology and met many of his subsequent companions. Tall, handsome, and fair complexioned, with grey eyes and yellow hair, making him extremely attractive to one and all. Attracted to Neoplatonism and Greek culture, he became known for his brilliant public disputations with his professors. Also gained expertise in both languages and the Jewish Cabala, while wandering through the various schools of Italy and France. Accumulated a remarkable library on the latter subject, drawing public interest into a heretofore isolated system of thought. Moved to Florence in his early 20s, and evolved a mystical view of philosophy, interweaving pagan and Christian thought. After visiting France, he returned to Florence and presented his 900 theses on natural sciences, magic, theology and metaphysics. 13 of them were found heretical by the pope, and he was forced to retract them, but later retracted his retraction, defending himself in an Apologia to the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici (Abraham Lincoln). Fell under the influence of the reformer Savanorola (Martin Heidigger), and took up ascetic practices and meditation. After going to France, he returned and was given absolution by the pope’s more lenient successor, and was officially vindicated. Turned to a more traditional religious view, commenting on the Bible in his last writings. Three years before his death, he gave away his ancestral principality, and made plans to wander the world barefoot preaching his view of the Christ. Ultimately died under mysterious circumstances, probably poisoned by one of his servants, passing away in a state of sanctity, invested by Savonarola. Inner: Striking memory, excellent ability at codifying spiritual information. Cerebral lifetime of questing within the framework of medieval religious mystic traditions, from the Neoplatonic to the Judaic to the Christian. Leo VI (749-780) - Byzantine Basileus. Known as ‘Leo the Philosopher.’ Outer: Father was either Basil I (Maxim Gorki), or his predecessor Michael III (Johnny Weissmuller) since his mother, Eudokia Ingerina, was simultaneously the mistress of the latter and wife of the former. Made co-emperor at the age of 4 along with his older half-brother, who died when he was 13. The loss of his favorite, which devastated his sire, made Basil actively and bitterly hate his new heir, since his true paternity was unknown. Well-educated, with a love for philosophy and theology, he showed far more of a propensity for scholarship than soldiering, as the empire came to reflect his lack of expertise in the latter realm. At 16, he was wed against his will to the excessively pious Theophano, who complained to his father that he refused to give up his mistress, Zoe Zaoutzaina, the daughter of a bureaucrat. Flogged to the point of bleeding by his outraged progenitor for the breach, while his inamorata was banished from the capital and married to another. Succeeded to the throne on his sire’s death in 886, with Theophano as his empress, although she retired to a convent in 893, leaving him open to marry his beloved when his wife passed on in 897. One daughter who died young from the union. His brother Alexander (Suge Knight) was co-ruler, but preferred spending his time in pursuit of pleasure, leaving him to lead alone. Liked to spend his leisure writing liturgical poems and hymns, as well as sermons and homilies, which he personally delivered from the pulpit during Church feasts. Raised his teenage brother, Stephen to the patriarchate of Constantinople, although he died six years later. Lost his second wife in 899, while she produced two daughters, still leaving him without a heir. Married a third time in 900 to Eudokia Baiana, although the union was technically illegal since Byzantine church law forbade third marriages. The following year she died giving birth to a stillborn son, leaving him once again without the desired dynastic heir. Took on a mistress, Zoe Carbonopsina, the relative of a well-known chronicler, and in 906 married her, after she had given birth to the future Constantine VII (Tupac Shakur) although the validity of the union, his fourth, went well beyond the pale of Church law, forcing him to wed via a priest, rather than the city’s patriarch. Spent most of his reign trying to stop incursions by the Arabs and Bulgars into Byzantine territory. Lost several key western possessions, including Sicily and Thessalonica, while the Aegean Sea was a predatory haven for Arab pirates. Strengthened the navy, but it had only had middling success under him. His real contribution was in letters and the law. Codified imperial law, which was written in Greek, and it became the legal basis for the empire. Wrote numerous decrees dealing with secular and ecclesiastical problems. Died in bed just as the Byzantine fleet suffered a devastating defeat. Succeeded by his brother, Alexander. Inner: Scholarly, with a genuine feel for legal order. Never much of an inspiring military leader, but had an excellent sense of administrative organization, leaving his empire stronger internally, while vulnerable externally. Pen-in-hand lifetime of acting far more the lawyer than the emperor, leaving a solid written testament to his inner achievements, while failing to protect his outer boundaries, and raising ecclesiastical hackles through his bending of custom and law to finally secure a heir. Diogenes (c412-323BZ) - Greek philosopher. Outer: Little known about his life. Possibly sold into slavery, before becoming a teacher to his owner’s children. Later exiled. Became a Cynic philosopher, and a believer in anarchic utopia, adopting thoroughly unconventional stances for every aspect of life. Traditionally presented as searching for an honest man with a lantern in broad daylight. Rejected comforts, lived by begging, and purposeful homelessness, winning him the nickname of “Kyon, or ‘og,’ which translated into cynic. The repository of many eccentric traits, including living in a storage jar, which he rolled up and down the streets when everyone was preparing for war, so as to appear to be busy, too. Once publicly masturbated in the agora to show how admirably shameless he had become. When asked by the conqueror Alexander the Great, if there was anything he could do for him, he asked him to get out of his light. Writings lost, although he worked in numerous modes, mostly expostulating negative thoughts. Inner: Ascetic, highly unconventional, self-sufficient. Eccentric lifetime of living out his beliefs, and in doing so, becoming master of his ascetic self, rather than his circumstances, and a symbolic truth seeker for all times.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS EXILED LINGUISTIC MASTER:
Storyline: The language-besotted lepidopterist has a perfect childhood then is cast adrift on the world’s landscape to slyly allow his memory and superb narrative skills to speak their piece on his impaling wit.
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) - Russian/American writer. Outer: Pampered son of a wealthy jurist and statesman. Born on Shakespeare’s (William Butler Yeats) birthday. Eldest of 5, and tri-lingual as a child. Brought up in a St. Petersburg townhouse and country estate, and treated as if he were the center of the universe. Learned to speak and read English before he could read Russian. A lifelong fascination with butterflies began when he was 7. Handsome, talented, disciplined and competitive, as well as a good athlete. Became a multi-millionaire at 16 when an uncle left him his estate, then lost all of it when his family was forced into impoverished exile because of the Russian Revolution. Published his first book of verse at 17. Six years later, his father was assassinated at an emigre political meeting in Berlin shielding the lecturer. Went to Trinity College in Cambridge, then taught boxing, tennis and languages in Berlin. Married Vera Slonim, a Russian Jewish woman in his mid-20s, who later acted as co-translator of his Russian works, one son from their happy union. His wife fell passionately in love with his work and was his willing assistant and prime reader their entire half-century plus life together. Moved to Paris in 1937, then the U.S. in 1940, becoming an American citizen in 1945, after having been invited by Stanford Univ. to lecture on Slavic languages. Wrote in both Russian and English and did his own translations, using the pseudonym Sirin for his 9 Russian works. Did his writing like a crossword puzzle in little bits and pieces that would fill out sections, before compiling them together for the whole. Taught at Wellesley during the 1940s, and later at Cornell in the 1950s, earning a reputation as a charmingly eccentric professor. Also held a research fellowship at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, which he later described as the most thrilling period of his adult life. Had a famous feud with critic Edmund Wilson. His best known work was Lolita, exploring the infatuation of a middle-aged professor for a nymphet, which was turned down by numerous publishers, before causing a huge sensation when it finally saw print in 1955. The money from the book allowed him to retire from teaching and he returned to Europe at the end of the 1950s and established himself at the stately Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland. Felt he had had a childhood that was so wondrous, itcould not be replicated, and so never established a permanent home once he moved to the west. Also probably did not want the revisited trauma of losing a home again. Avid butterfly collector and noted lepidopterist, who willingly cut himself off from the rest of the world at life’s end. Wrote his expanded autobiography, Speak Memory in 1966, and died of a viral infection a little over a decade later. Stipulated in his will that his private papers not be published until 50 years after the deaths of his wife and son. Had his hypothesis of the migration of Polyommatus blue butterflies from Asia to the New World via Siberia to Alaska in waves, confirmed through gene-sequencing technology years after his death, confirming his status as an amateur lepidoptrist extraordinaire. Inner: Guarded narcissist, revealing himself as little as he possibly could. Witty, learned, highly articulate, urbane, playful and aloof, with difficulties acknowledging his own feelings. Insomniac with a lifelong affliction of headaches. Passion for taxonomy, with a scientist’s sensibilities in his detailed dissection of butterflies. Monomaniacal in his pursuits. Felt he thought like a genius, wrote like a man of letters and talked like a child. Sweet butterfly of youth and then émigré adulthood lifetime of bringing his astute literary sensibilities to the world’s attention, while deliberately hiding both from himself and the curious public. Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) - Russian writer. Outer: Son of a handsome, impecunious ex-cavalry officer and a wealthy heiress, who was much older than her husband. One of 3 brothers. Endured an unhappy household through the capricious despotism of his mother, who did not spare the rod with him, causing him to think about running away, although never did. Educated at home, learning to speak German and French fluently. His family moved to Moscow when he was 9, then St. Petersburg after the death of his father in 1834. Educated at both universities, and became a friend of the poet Alexander Pushkin (Tupac Shakur). Went to Germany to continue his studies at the Univ. of Berlin and became a confirmed Westernizer, looking for radical reform in his homeland, a stance he pursued the rest of his life. Returned to Russia, worked in the civil service, then decided to devote his life to literature. His mother disapproved of his career, as well his involvement with a married French soprano and composer, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, who refused to leave her husband for him. The former withdrew all financial support, but when she died in his early 30s, he inherited a large fortune. Father of an illegitimate daughter by a seamstress in his mother’s employ, in a passing relationship. The child was raised by Viardot. His short stories were favorably received, but he was semi-arrested for an article written on Nikolai Gogol’s (Woody Allen) death, and, after a month in jail, spent 2 years in exile at his estate. The ongoing attachment to Viardot caused him to leave Russia in his late 30s, and he spent most of the rest of his life as an emigre abroad. Immensely popular in both France and England, with a host of culturati friends. Wrote 6 novels, all concerned with the social and political issues of Russia. His best known work was Fathers and Sons, published in 1862, a tale of generational conflict. A consummate craftsman with an extremely polished style. Although well-loved by foreigners, he had many enemies among the Russian writing community. Came back to his homeland in 1880 for ceremonies surrounding a monument to Pushkin, then returned to France, dying of cancer at the estate of Viardot, which he jointly owned with her and her husband, although he insisted before he went that he wished to be buried in his homeland. Inner: Tall, with an aristocratic mien, and a facility for making people feel uncomfortable. Tireless craftsman, continually polishing his body of work. Despised by many of his fellow Russian writers. Émigré lifetime of alternate alienation from and love for his homeland, making for a dual perspective from afar, which was reinforced by his unattainable love for a married woman. Alain Le Sage (1668-1747) - French writer. Outer: Father was a notary, advocate and registrar at the Royal Court of Rhuys. Probably educated by Jesuits, was called to the bar, and married in his mid-20s, at least 2 sons from union. Started out as a translator of Spanish plays, then began writing his own, finally enjoying success when he was near 40. Wrote about 100 plays, but is best known for his fiction. Often accused of plagiarism or lack of originality for borrowing heavily from foreign sources. Had a falling out with the Comedie-Francaise in 1709 over its elaborate acting style, and subsequently wrote in the genre of comedy of manners, often employing Oriental settings and using lyrics sung to popular airs. A fluid precise stylist, with a good-humored view of human foibles, although he never employed elevating themes, preferring to entertain rather than educate. Considered one of the first independent professional writers, receiving neither royal patronage or salon support. Spent a quiet life largely dedicated to his work. Inner: Excellent narrative abilities, with a gift for language. Independent lifetime of establishing his expertise in the rhythm of language as well as a fierce sense of autonomy to pursue his own literary and esthetic course. Tirso de Molina (Gabriel Tellez) (1584-1648) - Spanish playwright. Outer: Probably the natural son of the Duke of Osana. Studied at the Univ. of Alcala, and in 1601, entered the Order of Mercy, and became a theologian of some repute. Lived in various Spanish cities, as well as Portugal and the West Indies, and in 1622, while in Madrid, participated in a poetry contest on the canonization of St. Isidore. Took an active role in the literary life of Spanish culture, and within a 14 year span wrote more than 300 plays, showing an equal aptitude for comedy and tragedy, introducing the legendary character Don Juan to literature in “The Seducer of Seville.” His works are noted for their rich language, good humor and subtle psychological insights, making his characters come alive. Employed both theological and classical themes. His playwrighting, however, disturbed the authorities and in 1625, the Council of Castile asked him to stop and to leave Madrid. Went to Salamanca, and was named prior of the Monastery of Trujillo. Continued his traveling around Spain in 1630, finally returning to Madrid. Made his/storian of his order, and then in 1639, he was appointed its master before prior of the Mercedarian Monastery in Soria, six years later. In addition to his playwrighting, he also wrote lyrical poetry and prose. Inner: Good insight, rich sense of humor, with an inborn feeling for the theatrical. Insightful lifetime of using his spiritual sense and innate understanding of the human condition to rich literary affect, while sating his love of knowledge through his role as a well-respected theologian, despite challenging the authorities with his creative output. Alain de Lille (Alanus de Insulus) (c1128-1202) - French poet. Outer: Not much known about his life. Probably studied at Chartres, then became a teacher in Paris, winning fame for his prodigious learning. Attended the Lateran Council in 1179, Taught and preached in the south of France, probably in the Cistercian orders. Enjoyed a widespread reputation as a Doctor Universalis, and was an anti-scholastic mystic. Best known for an allegorical poem extolling nature as part of the perfection of the universe. Returned to Paris to continue writing and teaching, then retired to a Cistercian abbey in Citeaux where he died. Inner: Pious and learned, with an abiding faith in reason as a touchstone for the physical universe, and a reasonable belief in faith to see the rest of the unseen universe. Nature-besotted lifetime of using his considerable gifts at exposition to celebrate the wonders of the heavens in the earthly world he saw around him.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS NEUROTIC SELF-OBSESSIVE:
Storyline: The phobic wit turns his sharp, entertaining eye on everything but his true self in his ongoing struggle with his own horrors over the human comedy.
Woody Allen (Allan Stuart Koenigsberg) (1935) - American filmmaker and comedian. Outer: Father was a waiter and jewelry engraver, mother was a bookkeeper in a flower shop, whom he later characterized as abusive and negligent. The former ultimately lived to 100, despite a steady diet of meat and cigarettes. Had a lower middle-class Jewish upbringing, which he used repeatedly in many of his routines. His sister Letty Aronson, became a producer. Spent a lot of his childhood alone in his room practicing magical tricks, and playing his clarinet. Began writing jokes in high school for newspaper columnists and stage reviews, and became a writer on the original Sid Caesar TV show, while still a teenager. An indifferent student, with a lifelong fascination with film. Married Harlene Rosen, a 17 year old at the age of 20, divorced 6 years later. Reluctantly started performing his own material in Greenwich Village cafes, creating a stand-up comedy act around his own nebbishy, anxiety-ridden character, which led to writing for and acting in movies. 5’5”, wiry and bespectacled. Also wrote pieces for The New Yorker as well as several comedic books. In 1966, he married actress Louise Lasser, whom he met on his first film, the duo divorced in 1970. Wrote 2 Broadway comedies in the late 1960s which also were turned into films. Eventually became a filmmaker, initially as a jokester more interested in being funny then presenting any kind of true comic vision, and then expanding his deft wit to portray intimate interrelationships on screen, most notably in Annie Hall, which was not only a commercial success but was also given an Academy Reward for Best Picture in 1977. Had lifelong fascination with filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, his polar opposite on screen but neurotic parallel off it. An extremely disciplined writer, enabling him to create an extended body of work. Had a long ongoing relationship with actress Diane Keaton, who served as his muse in 8 of his films. A familiar NYC figure, playing clarinet every Monday eve for decades at Michael’s Pub, a jazz place, without ever acknowledging the audience. After casting her in A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy in 1982, he had a 12 year relationship with actress Mia Farrow, who became his subsequent primary screen focus on 13 films, while the two maintained separate abodes. The relationship produced a son, initially named Satchel, after legendary pitcher Satchel Paige, and later changed to Seamus, but the connection ended in 1992 when he made headlines with his involvement with her 21 year old adopted Korean daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who eventually became his wife in 1997. The pair later had a child together, and then adopted a 2nd daughter. In the bitter aftermath, he was accused of molestation of MF’s adopted daughter Dylan, and denied custody of the children in a tabloid trial that did not seem to affect his ongoing career. His son would later change his name to Ronan to completely disconnect from his father. Although only 3 of his films ever showed a clear profit, he was given a unique opportunity by the public over a 3 decade period to continue to explore himself through cinema because of his rare comedic gifts, churning out 34 films in 35 years, although his later works were mostly safe repetitions of formulae he had already explored, with younger and younger women inexplicably uniting with his continually aging self. A documentary called Wild Man Blues was made in 1998 of one of his European jazz tours, showing why he needs Soon-Yi’s practical grounding force to counter-balance his own fearfully funny take on existence. Appeared at the 2002 Academy Rewards, as well as the Cannes Film Festival, while completing his trifecta retreat from reclusiveness that year by suing his producing partner, claiming she had withheld $12 million from him, although he expressed a public desire their friendship continue, despite the acrimony involved, which was resolved in an out-of-court settlement. Directed his first Broadway play the following year, two one-acters called, “Writer’s Block,” and has toyed with a big-buck autobiography, insisting on a lot of money for the time spent on it. Won a record $5 million out-of-court settlement in 2009 over the parodic use of his image as a rabbi in a clothing ad without his permission. Inner: Study in contrasts. Pathologically shy, yet a highly public figure. Extreme sensitivity to the emotional webs of interrelationships, yet curiously callous to the repercussions of his involvement with his quasi-adopted daughter. Unable to relate directly with people, yet has a keen understanding of the power of pithy communication. Never rehearses his films, and loathes doing auditions, preferring spontaneity on the set, and believability in his characters. Extraordinary wit, yet deeply pessimistic. Highly circumscribed existence, with the same small circle of friends, the same daily routines, the same foods and same restaurants. Ongoing fascination with much younger women, perhaps as a salve to his own fears of aging and dying. Totally nonreligious. Monomaniacally neurotic lifetime of trying to work out his inner conundrums through the highly public medium of film, and allowed to do so by a selective public willing to support his obsessions with life, love and death for his entertaining and perceptive perspective on them. Andrey Bely (Boris Bugayev) (1880-1934) - Russian writer. Outer: Son of a math professor and rector of Moscow Univ. His father was known for his absent-mindedness and eccentricities, and his progeny’s conflicts with him, would give him the thematics of several of his subsequent works. Mother was 30 years younger, a beautiful, hysterical neurotic. Raised in an intellectual, albeit highly emotional, environment, studying under his sire. Received a math degree from his progenitor’s university, while studying the sciences and philosophy. Deeply involved in the philosophical issues of the day, he viewed life through the eyes of an aesthetic scientist, while being thoroughly imbued with the magic power of words. Fell in love with poet Alexander Blok’s (Yevgeny Yevtushenko) wife, Lyubov Mendeleev, and almost fought several duels over her, in his desire to save her from her husband. Wrote verse, and took on the pen name of Andrey Bely or ‘Andrew White,’ to avoid embarrassing his father. Tried to create a new literary form via a combination of prose, poetry, music and painting, during the century’s first decade, which he dubbed his ‘Symphonies,’ little realizing it was a reflection of film, which he would explore his next go-round in this series. Met his own self-perceived soul-companion at 30, Asia Turgenieva, the 18 year old grandniece of writer Ivan Turgenev (Vladimir Nabokov), and the duo were married the next year, although they eventually separated and divorced. His masterwork was the comic novel, Petersburg, the story of an inept revolutionary son of a public figure, whom he was assigned to assassinate, and fails to do so. It was the second part of a trilogy which was never completed. Became an adherent of Theosophist Rudolph Steiner, joining his colony in Switzerland during WW I for two years, although when he left, his wife remained. Returned to Russia right before the Bolshevik revolution, which he greeted enthusiastically, seeing it as a watershed for humanity, before realizing its excesses. Disillusioned, he left the country again after Blok’s death, returning in the early 1920s, only to have his works denounced by Leon Trotsky. In 1931, he married a second time, and spent his last years on his memoirs, limning Russian social and cultural life before, during and after the Revolution. His final work was a detailed study of the language and style of Nikolai Gogol, in an unconscious re-view of his previous life’s oeuvre, through his far more cerebral and mystic eyes. Inner: Quirky, intellectual, neurotic, paranoid. Ardent seeker after new truths, although had difficulty in dealing with criticism. Saw the feminine principle of Sofia as ruler of the world, and, as a positivist, felt that all true knowledge was scientific. Holy fool lifetime of searching for meaning, intellectual ideals and proper forms in which to express them, through a mathematical, rational and mystical consciousness, before delving into his disintegrative aspects, as a quester/jester forever in search of himself. Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) - Russian writer. Outer: Son of a provincial nobleman who was a small district landowner. His mother had lost two children in infancy before he was born. Had early feelings of nationalism and was a religious fanatic who was deeply disturbed by the Catholic background of some of his ancestors. His father was intelligent and cultured, having written some light comedies, while his mother was deeply pious with a touch of the mystic and had a profound effect on his development. Delicate and sickly through childhood, with little regard for school. Small, and round-shouldered, with a large nose. Known as a prankster although basically quiet and sullen. Acted in several school plays, and showed talent as a mimic. Went to St. Petersburg with the idea of becoming an actor but failed to be accepted by the Bolshoi Theater. His literary ambitions were also thwarted, and he decided to go to America, but got only to Germany before returning home. Obtained a civil service position and in his early 20s, he succeeded in finding an audience with his short stories based on the folk tales and superstitions of his home region, where his earlier poetry had failed. Began meeting eminent Russian literary figures and secured the post of teacher of his/story at a fashionable school for young women, which enabled him to resign his civil service post. Saw himself as a famous his/storian but only received a lectureship at the Univ. of St. Petersburg, which he soon resigned to devote himself entirely to literature in 1835. After a success with an insightful comedy, The Inspector General, he left Russia for a dozen years, spending most of his time in Rome, his favorite city. There he wrote his most famous work, Dead Souls, a dead-on look at Russian bureaucracy and the multi-levels of the country’s social framework, published in 1846, which was to be followed by a sequel that was never finished. After several more classically comedic short stories, his writing powers and imagination began to wane, as did his health, and he became obsessed with assuming responsibility for the salvation of Russian society. Went to the Holy Land to assuage his rising religious fanaticism, then returned to Russia to write the second part of Dead Souls, but was unable to do so. Instead, he withdrew more and more from the outside world, plagued by feelings of both guilt and a perpetual sensation of being cold. In an obsessive fit, he burned his manuscripts and, suffering from deep depression, lost all desire to live, dying shortly afterwards in Moscow. His last vision was of a ladder from heaven. Inner: Messianic, fanatical and obsessive, with a megalomaniacal distortion of his not inconsiderable powers of exposition. Amusing and highly entertaining, as well as a continual hypochondriac. Never married, with virtually no erotic interest in women, probably led a celibate life. Uberneurotic lifetime of never getting past adolescence, and, despite a brilliantly satirical sense of life around him, having little real connection to the real world, as a live soul with a curiously dead-end subconscious. Jakob Lenz (1751-1792) - German playwright, poet and critic. Outer: Son of a well-to-do pastor. Entered the Univ. of Konigsberg to study theology but left after three years to travel through Germany as a companion to two young nobles. Lived in Leipzig for five years, where he did all his important creative work, writing plays in the manner of William Shakespeare (William Butler Yeats). Showed a gift for lyrical writing, although none of his works were ever successful in the theater. Came under the influence of Johann Goethe (Thomas Mann) and became obsessed with outdoing him as a literary figure. Imitated Goethe to the point of absurdity, becoming a figure of ridicule. Journeyed to Weimar in his mid-20s in the hope of a state appointment, but a tactless lampoon caused his expulsion from the court. Lived for a time in Switzerland and then suffered an attack of madness, and for a year and a half was mentally deranged and under the care of Goethe’s brother-in-law. Taken home by his parents, who cared for him, although he lost his ability to write. Went to Moscow and lived in poverty there as a schoolmaster for eleven years, before being discovered dead on the street. Inner: Neurotic, unstable megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Quixotic and undisciplined. Self-inflated lifetime of being swallowed up and spewed out by his ungrounded grandiose sense of self. Romanus III Argyros (968-1034) - Byzantine Basileus. Outer: Great grandson of Byzantine emperor Romanus I (Jay-Z). From a prominent aristocratic family. Served as a judge, before becoming urban prefect of Constantinople under Constantine VIII (Kim Jong-il), who forced him to divorce his first wife, and marry his daughter and his own third cousin Zoe (Helena Rubinstein), as a means of bringing both of them to the throne, since he knew his time was exceedingly short, dying three days after the wedding. Had one daughter from his first union, and no children from his second. Harbored fantasies of being known as “the philosopher king,” a la much earlier Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Martin Heidigger), but possessed neither his martial skills nor his unique stoical philosophic bent. Spent lavishly on building, as well as the clergy, although his muddled tax policies weakened the treasury. Led a large army in 1030 against the Muslims, only to suffer a serious defeat through a surprise ambush. Other generals proved more successful, while his initial popularity waned with his ineptitude in the field. Reduced the taxes of his natural class, and reinstated privileges denied them, while showing a marked disregard for the empire’s peasantry, who suffered under him. Tried to curtail his wife’s spending, which further distanced her from him, since the pair had stopped sleeping with one another when it was obvious she could not conceive, despite all sorts of desperate measures taken on her post-menopausal body, which ultimately led to his undoing, after weathering earlier conspiracies against him by his sister-in-law, Theodora. Deliberately ignored his wife’s affair with the future Michael IV (Sun Myung-Moon), while conducting secret liaisons of his own, until told about it by a sister. Looked like a walking corpse at the end, with a grotesquely swollen face, and such halting breath, that he had to stop every few feet to rest, when walking. Grew increasingly irritable, losing his temper on the slightest provocation, in a reversal of personality from his earlier good-humored self. Drowned while swimming in the imperial bath, when, it was suspected, his head was held under water by members of his wife’s retinue. His body was found floating afterwards, barely breathing, as he was pulled out of the water. The empress viewed him in that state, with a brief show of pro forma grief, before departing, and he expired soon afterwards. No eyewitnesses saw the entire incident, only its end, so that his death remains speculative. Succeeded by Michael IV. Inner: Initially friendly and accessible, and easily moved to laughter, before the pressures of office and his own failures began wearing heavily on him, making him suspicious, intemperate and unhappy. Blinkered lifetime of seeing his lofty fantasies brought thuddingly down to Earth by his harsh realities, before ultimately drowning in his inability to perceive the personal dynamics around him.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS COMIC SATIRIST:
Storyline: The worldclass wit turns alienation into a brilliantly droll tool in his ongoing apprenticeship as a good-humored scold of the world’s follies.
Mordecai Richler (1931-2001) - Canadian writer. Outer: Maternal grandfather was a Hasidic rabbi and peddler who escaped the Polish pogroms earlier in century. Father was a junk dealer. Only child. Had a traditional Jewish upbringing, with his grandfather held up as a model. His parents divorced when he was 13, and his mother took in borders. Attended George Williams Univ. in Montreal for 2 years, but, petrified of pursuing an academic career, he cashed in an insurance policy and went to live in Paris for an equal period, considering his sojourn a far more satisfactory university, where he was strongly influenced by the Existentialists. After contracting scurvy from a poverty-ridden existence, he returned to Montreal to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and published his first novel 2 years later, before settling in England in 1954 for nearly 2 decades. Married twice, the first time to Catherine Boudreault, and the 2nd time in 1960, to Florence Wood, a Montreal model, 3 sons and 2 daughters from his 2nd union, with all involved in writing, broadcasting or cartooning. Cranked out TV scripts for money, as well as screenplays. Took 5 years to write St. Urbain’s Horsemen, then decided to return home afterwards, feeling he knew Montreal and Canada far better than he would ever know England. Made a brief Hollywood foray, then taught creative writing for 2 years at Carleton Univ. in Ottawa. His subsequent spate of works dealt directly with his growing up in quasi-poverty, and also the anti-Semitism he suffered while doing so. Did literary criticism and editorial work, while establishing himself as a world/class sardonic wit and satirist. Wrote 10 novels all told, as well as children’s books, magazine pieces and screenplays. Several of his books, including The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, an archetypal story of Jewish pushiness and chutzpah, have been turned into successful films. Spent 8 years on a convoluted Canadian his/story as seen through the eyes of Jewish strivers, Solomon Gursky Was Here, as a summation of his unique comic sensibilities. The book was based on the Bronfman family of Seagram’s fame. Served as a continual journalistic thorn, particularly towards Quebec separatists. Died of complications from cancer. Inner: Quiet, intense, and generous, with a warmth reserved for friends and close associates. Sardonic lifetime of coming into the world under alienating auspices, and subsequently turning his acute satiric eye to redressing his sense of social order. Anatole France (Francois-Anatole Thibault) (1844-1924) - French writer. Outer: Father was a bookseller and minor publisher, learning to read only as an adult. Mother was the illegitimate offspring of a miller’s daughter, who had been widowed prior to her marriage. Her stepfather was a financial drain on family. Grew up surrounded by books, and was known by his writing name from grammar school onward. Alienated from his father, showered with affection by his mother. Rejected the Church and its dogmas, despite the religiosity of his mother. Received a baccalaureate somewhat late, then was a school proctor, before becoming a publisher’s reader. Wrote verse since childhood, and began his literary career as a poet. In his late 30s, he married Valerie de Sauville, who was 13 years his junior, in a half-arranged union. One daughter whom he doted upon, though the 2 later became estranged because of her libertine tendencies. The marriage ultimately ended in divorce in 1892. Became the most prominent French literateur of his time. Best known for Penguin Island, a satire on French his/story. Half his work appeared in periodicals and newspapers. Moved from sentimentality to satire, while a near 30 year liaison with Armand de Caillavet, a mistress, spurred most of his work. Became far more political following the Dreyfus affair, strongly supporting the accused Jewish officer’s innocence. In 1920, he wed Emma Laprevotte. Elected to the French Academy and given the 1921 Nobel Prize for literature. Briefly a communist, with strong socialist leanings. Had many affairs, and married a 2nd time near life’s end. Inner: Skeptical, ironic, witty, naturally indolent. Left-leaning liberal, undogmatic socialist. Felt the need to instruct through his writings. Good-humored lifetime of serving as a teacher/writer, and champion of reason against irrationality. Jean Paul (Johann Paul Richter) (1763-1825) - German writer. Outer: Son of a schoolmaster and organist who eventually became a clergyman. Grew up in poverty which followed him into early manhood. Entered the Univ. of Leipzig to study theology, but had to leave after 3 years because of debts. Lived with his mother for 2 years, then became a private tutor. Established an elementary school, which he directed for 4 years, before winning recognition for his writing, which allowed him to live off of his craft. After the death of his mother, he lived briefly in several German cities before marrying in his late 30s and settling in Bayreuth, where he lived a quiet life. Celebrated the commonplace and the ordinary with humor and insight. Became more interested in politics and pedagogical concerns as he grew older. Enjoyed amazing popularity, probably the most widely-read author of his day, combining sentimentality, humor and insights. His death was cause for national mourning. Inner: Quiet, perceptive, sharp-witted. Benevolent lifetime of engaging the public with his insights into the ordinary, and reaping much literary love from his efforts. Mentzer (Johann Baptist Fischart) (1546-1589) - German writer. Outer: Parents were spice dealers. Educated at Strasbourg and Worms, then went to the Netherlands, Paris, Italy and England to continue his humanistic studies, before finally earning a doctorate in law in Basel. Pursued a legal career, married Anna Hertzog in his mid-30s, and took a bemused interest in the rigidity of the Swiss Calvinists. Wrote in conjunction with his brother-in-law, who was a printer. His pen name came from his longterm family connection to the German city of Mainz. Had an excellent eye for satire among all social classes. In later life he was made a magistrate at Forbach, in charge of the judiciary, forests and police. Because of his official duties, he wrote little the last part of his career. Inner: Humanistic, highly moral and a keen observer, who wrote directly about what he saw. Bench-warming lifetime of viewing society as literal judge and figurative judgment-maker.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS COMPLEAT ALIEN:
Storyline: The perennial Other combines a love for unconventional adventure and devious deception with the ability to acutely express himself in his non-native tongue, but without the commensurate skill to penetrate his own heart of darkness.
Jerzy Kosinski (1933-1991) - Polish/American writer. Outer: Son of a translator of technical manuals, mother was musically inclined. Because the family was Jewish, his parents felt their son would be safer alone when Germany invaded Poland at the beginning of WW II. Placed with a peasant woman near the border but she died, and he was left to fend for himself when he was 6. Later wrote the novel The Painted Bird, published in 1965, based on his experiences, although much of the book, which was grotesque in the extreme, may have been his own invention. Traumatized by being thrown by peasants in an offal pit, which left him mute. After the war, he was sent to a displacement camp, was recognized and reunited with his parents, who had pretended to be German. Split his head open in a skiing accident at 15, and after hospitalization, his voice returned. Earned 2 graduate degrees at the Univ. of Lodz, then was a sharpshooter in the Polish army. Escaped from Poland by fabricating a visa, and arrived in NYC in 1957 with a rudimentary knowledge of English. Got a grant for Columbia Univ. and supported himself with odd jobs. Wrote a best-seller, and through it, met Mary Weir, the widow of a steel magnate. The duo were married in his late 20s, and they lived quite lavishly on her money. Divorced and his wife, who was over a decade older than he, died of brain cancer 2 years later. Reputedly worked for the CIA because of his anti-communism, though the claim remains unproven. Began writing best-sellers, although was often accused of secretly being helped by others, since English was a 2nd language. Married Katherina von Fraunhofer, an advertising executive who was the daughter of a German baron. Taught at several universities, and continued his literary output, as well as writing for film. Had an unconventional but opulent lifestyle, traveling, playing polo, and socializing with the rich and famous. Stung by criticism and accusations, he also felt his health was irretrievably failing, and he eventually committed suicide by placing a plastic bag over his head in the bathtub. Inner: Fascinated with disguises and sexual depravity. Practical joker, and a connoisseur of vices, he loved challenging and stimulating people. Charming, conniving. Exile-in-extremis lifetime lived as an Other, built on fabrications within fabrications, until he probably no longer could countenance his own countenance, and drowned himself in his deceptions. Joseph Conrad (Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) (1857-1924) - Polish/English writer and mariner. Outer: Family was highly cultivated and from the impoverished landed gentry with a reckless patriotic tradition. Only child of Apollo Korzenioski, a poet and translator, who was also a committed Polish patriot. When he was 5, his sire was jailed for anti-Russian activities, then both parents were sent into exile in northern Russia. Left with a maternal uncle, who was unsympathetic to his parents’ revolutionary ardor, as his guardian. His mother died from tuberculosis in exile when he was 7, and his father followed her 4 years later, despite being allowed to leave Russia because of poor health. The latter’s funeral subsequently served as a huge patriotic demonstration. Loved adventurous novels as a child, and was determined to be an adventurer himself. Educated in Cracow, then left Poland permanently at 17, save for a couple of later visits. Most of his relatives felt he had deserted Poland in its hour of great need, causing tremendous guilt on his part, which he would try to work out in his writings. Spent the next 4 years in France as a bohemian, a gunrunner to Spain and a sailor. Made a suicide attempt in his late 20s after losing money gambling, although later claimed the self-inflicted wound in the chest was as a result of a duel. Short, dark-haired, and graceful but nervous, with extremely expressive eyes. Began a 15 year career afterwards as a British merchant mariner, becoming its only Polish captain, and an official Briton in 1886. Traveled the world, visiting the exotic locales which would become the dark heart of his fiction, and began writing in his late 30s in his adopted tongue of English, which was superior to his Polish and French, although, in his perfectionism, he had to struggle mightily to bend it to his literary will. On the death of his guardian, he retired permanently from the sea, and devoted his full attention to literature, completing his first novel and meeting his future wife that same year. Despite his difficult facility in written English, he could barely be understood speaking the language. Published 7 novels over the next 15 years, including his best known works, Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness, both tales of misplaced power and zeal, as well as a host of extraordinary short stories and 2 autobiographies. Married a typist and the daughter of a bookseller, Jessie Emmeline George, in his late 30s, had 2 sons and settled in England, where he found himself continually in debt because of a lack of receptivity to his work. In spite of obvious obstacles, he was determined to be a great writer. Extremely harsh to his wife, despite his complete dependence on her and her unwavering support, and his ongoing difficulties with friends, agents, publishers and critics. His wife eventually became extremely obese, rivaling him in their mutual invalidism. Had a gift for friendship, with an extraordinary group of English literati at his letter-writing behest, as well as Polish artists and intellectuals who all recognized his genius even if the public-at-large did not. Collaborated on several works with the far more facile Ford Madox Ford (Anthony Minghella), with the latter doing most of the writing. Continually borrowed money from publishers against books not yet written, while suffering periodic writer’s block, a crippling case of gout, ill health and ongoing depression, which was a lifelong affair. Finally achieved literary success in his late 50s, although his later work was of an uneven, lesser quality. Visited Poland prior to WW I, and made one visit to America a year before he died of cardiac failure at home, after earlier politely declining a knighthood. Inner: Neurotic high-strung paranoid, with uncontrolled anger, and a deep sense of betrayal and guilt. Great pride, as well as discomfort and defensiveness about his native country and having left it. Conservative, idealistic and skeptical. At sea lifetime lived as a continual Other, using his deep wounds, literary rejections, emotional imbalance and adventures as grist for an extremely telling body of work, a legacy he probably valued more than his very life. Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855) - Polish poet and playwright. Outer: Father was a lawyer and belonged to the local gentry, giving his son a broad view of people. Warmly attached to his mother, he also learned local folklore from servants and peasants. Educated at a Dominican run school, until his father died when he was 14, making finances precarious. 3 years later, he enrolled at the Univ. of Vilno, the top Polish school. Initially studied science, but turned to literature and language, while founding and leading the Philomaths, a small group who encouraged learning as a means of social progress and freedom, while secretly protesting Russian control of Poland. Wrote poetry in college, then became a teacher in Kowna, continuing his education through intensive reading. Fell in love with the daughter of a wealthy landowner, but she married someone else, and, incurable romantic that he was, he was forced to work out his dark feelings through poetry. In 1823, he was cruelly investigated and imprisoned by Russian authorities for his connection to the Philomaths and after a six month prison term, was condemned to exile in Russia. Went to St. Petersburg, but was not allowed to teach, despite being nominated for a professorship. Traveled to the Crimea, then settled in Moscow. Became a favorite of the liberal Russian intelligentsia, and a welcome guest in aristocratic drawingrooms. Continued his writings, from which his fame grew, than got permission to visit western Europe. Fell in love with another rich man’s daughter, which was, once again, unrequited. Following the Polish uprising against Russia in 1830, he waited a year before returning to his homeland, then followed the disarmed Polish soldiers to Germany, where he realized the defeated uprising was still valuable for European liberation. His further poetry showed radical sympathies with pan-European revolutionaries and had widespread international repercussions. Settled in Paris and took part in Polish émigré political activities. In his mid-30s, he unhappily married Celina Szymanowska, the daughter of a celebrated Polish pianist, several children from union, although the family lived on the brink of poverty. Wrote of his great love for Poland in his masterwork Pan Tadeusz. Failed in his attempt to write in French for the French theater, but became a professor of Latin literature at the Univ. of Lausanne, then 2 years later occupied the chair of Slavonic literature at the College de France, enjoying great success in both positions. His wife suffered a mental breakdown, then was cured by a Lithuanian, whom he briefly became a disciple of, until he was dismissed from his post for promulgating the healer’s doctrines. During the revolutionary year of 1848, he became highly active politically, gave impassioned speeches, organized a Polish legion in Italy and personally marched them from Rome to Milan. Played with the idea of forging “Jewish legions,” to fight alongside his fellow Poles, but it was never brought to fruition. Received by the pope, he founded a French newspaper which was subsequently liquidated by the government, and went to Turkey to personally inspect the Polish troops there, before dying of cholera during an epidemic in Constantinople. Solemnly buried in Paris, then, at century’s near end, he was brought back to Poland and interred in a national shrine. After his death, a son destroyed any and all documents that contradicted his heroic public image. Inner: Total romantic, with a highly emotional political sense. Viewed as a great spiritual and cultural leader, thanks to his mastery of the art of personal expression. Archetypal lifetime of establishing themes of exile from Poland and mastery of languages that he would continue to explore in his succeeding lives in this series. Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584) - Polish poet and playwright. Outer: From a wealthy family. Educated at the Cracow Academy, and then traveled and studied in Germany, Italy, France. Returned to his homeland and served as a royal secretary before settling down on his family’s estate. In his mid-40s, he married and had a daughter who died when she was 4. Began his writing career in Latin, and then wrote in Polish, and soon became famous throughout Europe as the first great poet in the Slavic language, particularly for his songs, which were considered Renaissance lyric poetry of the highest order. Wrote erotic, philosophic, patriotic and religious poems. Died of a heart attack. Inner: Patriotic and worldly, with a lyrical sense of language. Also secretive and hidden. Peripatetic lifetime of travel, and, unlike other lives in this series, fashioned a return to Poland to bring to that country’s literary and cultural life, the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS REVOLUTIONARY & NATIONAL TREASURE:
Storyline: The cultural martyr rises from cerebral objectivity into passionate subjectivity, becoming a romantic hero to many, and a simple thug to others, in his ongoing evolution as a true poet of the people.
Tupac Shakur (1971-1996) - American singer and actor. Outer: Of African/American descent. Mother was a Black Panther activist, who spent part of her pregnancy in jail, after being accused and ultimately acquitted of conspiring to bomb department stores and a police station. His father was briefly her lover, although played no part in his son’s upbringing, and did not surface until his late progeny’s estate was contested. Made his acting debut at the age of 13 in “A Raisin in the Sun,” in a benefit for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential bid. The family moved shortly afterwards to Baltimore, where he briefly attended the High School for the Performing Arts. Small and wiry and highly energetic. Began writing rap, then dropped out of school and moved to Oakland, where he engaged in the street life of the city, and where the criminals he befriended became father figures to him. Had the words ‘Thug Life’ tattooed across his abdomen. Made his rap debut with "2Pacalypse Now" in 1991. The following year, he was involved in a scuffle at a Marin County festival that left a 6 year old dead from a stray bullet. The next annum, he was accused, although never convicted, of shooting 2 off-duty Atlanta police officers to death over a traffic argument, and the following year, he was shot 5 times during a robbery in the lobby of a Manhattan recording studio, which he blamed on Notorious B.I.G. for failing to warn him, although later recanted, claiming the accusation was just to jack up record sales by creating a faux rift twixt east and west coast hip-hoppers. Much later it would come out that he inculpated Sean Combs’s associates over the deed, which was carried out for his disrespecting them by rejecting their business overtures. Accused with 2 others of sexual assault on a woman, and went to trial in a wheelchair. Became emblematic of the death’n’destiny violence of young black American males. Best known song was a Grammy award winner in 1995, ‘Dear Mama,’ in which he thanked his mother for all the sacrifices she made for him. Became a film star in his own right, and was preparing for superstardom as well as incarceration, at the time of his premature death. Died on a Friday the 13th of respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest, after being shot 4 times in an ambush, while riding in the same vehicle as Death Row Records co-founder and president, Marion ‘Suge’ Knight, who may have orchestrated his demise to save himself paying royalties. His prolific oeuvre continues being released, and he remains an authentic voice of his time, becoming even larger in death than he was in life. Inner: Charismatic, hugely talented, with a questioning and questing sense behind his thug life facade. Well-read, compassionate and sensitive, but into the veneer of toughness. Extremely political, continually writing his entire life. Shake-it-up lifetime of experiencing jail in the womb, and then applying his revolutionary sensibilities to African-American street culture, before being violently removed from the scene, in his ongoing draw towards cultural martyrdom as a true poet of the people. Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) - Russian poet. Outer: His family had been nobility on his father’s side, but gradually lost its wealth and influence over the generations. Great-grandfather on his mother’s side was from Cameroon, and had been bought at a Constantinople slave mart as a gift to the czar, before ultimately marrying a Swede and becoming a general. The poet was fascinated with his African past, using it as future material. His father was an egotistical, incompetent, retired army officer, who wept a lot and displayed a strong temper. His mother was domineering, easily irritated, socially ambitious, and loved his younger brother far more than she did him. She would often go months without saying anything to him, which left her moody son to his own inner resources. 5’6”, swarthy, vigorous and highly energetic, with blue eyes and claw-like fingernails. His poetic talents were recognized early at school, and at 15 he published his first poem in an influential journal. After graduation, he toiled in the foreign office for 3 years in St. Petersburg, doing little at work and living a loose life with many affairs while managing to insult the authorities with his epigrammatic wit. Saved by friends from Siberia, and instead was sent to serve in the army corps in southern Russia. Eventually wound up in Odessa in 1813, as his poetic reputation burgeoned and his Byronic sense of romance led him to an ill-advised affair with the wife of the viceroy there. Also fathered a child with a serf, all the while writing away like a madman. Dismissed from public service and ordered to settle on his family’s estate. The following year, he was called to the capital, where he was put under close supervision, although by then much of his revolutionary ardor had dissipated, and he became a proto-militarist, while reclaiming the Orthodox faith of his youth. Wrote his masterwork, Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse about fate and upper-class love, later that decade before turning his extraordinary poetic sensibilities to drama. Fell passionately in love with Natalia Goncharov, a beautiful but empty 17 year old, whom he married in his early 30s, despite misgivings about the institution. His wife didn’t care for poetry and was jealous of her husband, who probably slept with her sister, while he in turn was equally distrusting of her. 3 children from union, which put him in financial difficulties. Made Gentleman of the Chamber by Nicholas I (Louis B. Mayer), and denied a passport, which chafed his style, although not his poetic and prose output. Started a literary magazine, while his flirtatious wife began a platonic affair with a young Frenchman, who was the adopted son of the Dutch ambassador. A duel was avoided when the Frenchman married his sister-in-law. After another secret meeting twixt his wife and his antagonist, he once more challenged him to a duel, which was fought with pistols at 20 paces. Gravely wounded on the first shot, he died 2 days later. His last words were, “It’s difficult to breathe, I’m suffocating.” Later sentenced to death for dueling, in a typical Russian irony. His body was secretly taken to his estate for fear of popular unrest surrounding questions around his demise. Inner: Restless, impulsive, boundless energy, as well as remarkable charm and wit. Manic-depressive, completely uninhibited, Heartful, artful lifetime of violent passions and brilliant exposition to become Russia’s most beloved poet and a national treasure. Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) - Russian poet. Outer: From a cultured middle-class Jewish family who were not religious. Father was a successful leather merchant and mother was a music teacher. Grew up in St. Petersburg, where only cultured Jews were allowed to live, and was educated by tutors and governesses. Educated in a prestigious local school, then Paris, Italy, and Heidelberg, where he studied Old French literature and finally the Univ. of St. Petersburg, where he studied philosophy for a year, but did not graduate, while hanging out with a fellow group of writers who called themselves ‘the Poets Guild.’ After his first collection of poems was published in 1913, he became a leader of the Acmeist school, which strove for concrete and clear expression, and also paid homage to the high cultural voices of the past. His work was impersonal, fatalistic and meticulously crafted, with a very strong intellectual resonance to it. Initially welcomed the Russian Revolution in early 1917, but then saw its excesses, and went to the south of Russia to weather its subsequent civil wars, finding his distinct lyrical voice. Found the work many of his contemporaries far too childish for his tastes, while his own reputation continued to grow with his further output. In 1922, he married Nadezhda Khazina, an art student who later followed him into exile, and memorized his poetry to keep it alive. During his mid-30s, he wrote no poetry, only prose, which was quite like his poetics, as well as criticism. Saw himself as an outsider, and identified strongly with Alexander Pushkin, little realizing he was one and the same with him. Visited Armenia in 1932, which occasioned the final cycle of poems published during his lifetime. Survived mostly by doing translations and through the generosity of friends. Arrested in 1934 for an uncomplimentary epigram written about dictator Joseph Stalin. Exiled to the Urals where he tried to commit suicide, after being driven half-insane through interrogations and abuse. Then was sent to Voronezh, where he continued to write, pouring forth the naked horror of his existence in rich, image-thick verse. Released in the middle of 1937, he returned to Moscow, but was denied anywhere to live and suffered 2 heart attacks, only to be rearrested while recuperating in a sanitarium and sentenced to 5 years at hard labor. His wife accompanied him on his unhappy hegira, while he continually moved from labor camp to labor camp, until he reached the far eastern edge of Russia, where he died of another heart attack. His widow later wrote two superb volumes of memoirs, and largely through her efforts, managed to keep his poetic spirit alive. Inner: Had a nostalgia for the world culture of the past. Did not oppose political changes in Russia, understood the epic quality of the revolution, but could not countenance the dark god of death at its helm. Martyred lifetime as a truth-teller, dooming himself to a slow suicidal death at the hands of a maniacal scourge, before spinning back in time to act out a far more passionate rebelliousness borne of having passively suffered his fate in this go-round. Mikhail Lomonsov (1711-1765) - Russian scientist, scholar and poet. Outer: Father was a prosperous peasant fisherman and trader. Followed his sire’s profession from the age of 10, while educating himself from the few books available to him. A thirst for knowledge sent him penniless and on foot to Moscow in his late teens, where he hid his peasant origins, and enrolled at a prestigious academy. Suffered extreme privation, but showed himself to be a superior student, despite being the object of scorn by his better-born classmates, and he was sent abroad with 2 others to Germany, after absorbing the 8 year course in 5 years and moving on to St. Petersburg Academy. At the Univ. of Marburg, he received advanced training in mathematics, science and philosophy, and also got married, while engaging in the rough-and-tumble student life there. Also fascinated by the arts, he came under the spell of mathematician Gottfried Leibniz (Bertrand Russell) who would influence him greatly. Returned to Russia in 1741 a bona fide scientist and scholar, although his temper got him arrested in 1743. 2 odes sent to the Empress Elizaveta (Helena Rubinstein) won him his release, after he used his prison time to work out the predominant ideas of his scientific agenda. In 1745, he was made a professor and member of the Russian Academy of Science, holding that position for the remainder of his life. Did both translations and original works on science, while conducting successful laboratory experiments in the face of considerable hostility and the jealousy of his colleagues. Drew up the plans for Moscow Univ., and in 1757, he instituted reforms to make the university an intellectual center, linked with the cerebral life of the country. Revered Russian czar Peter the Great (Yukio Mishima), and like him wanted to elevate Russia to the same standards as Europe. Popularized science, increased the efficiency of the Academy and improved education standards, using his prodigious energies to try to bring Russia into accord with the rest of the civilized world. Wrote 3 major works on the Russian language, giving foundation to the modern mother tongue, as well as inaugurating modern Russian poetry. Acted as the official Russian poet, glorifying Peter, the motherland and the power and glories of creation. A fount of energy, he centered his life around his house and the laboratory he had erected in his garden, but he was continually subject to the sniping of others, particularly after the death of Elizaveta in 1761. Finally worn down by his efforts, as well as the persecutions he suffered, he died exhausted. Buried with great honor, but afterwards his notes were confiscated, while his works were purged of their humanism and distorted to make him seem an upholder of orthodoxy, although his reputation and contributions were reinstated centuries later. Inner: Robust, extremely strong and intelligent, with a volatile temper, and a confrontational intellectuality that was willing to take on a whole country, as well as the entrenched scientific establishment of Europe in order to serve rational truth. High energy lifetime of getting down and dirty in the ivory towered trenches of academe, and proving himself a mind and spirit of the ages. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (905-959) - Byzantine Basileus. Outer: His surname, ‘Porphyrogenitus,’ signaled he had been born in the official sanctioned purple chamber of the palace. Father was Leo VI (Leo Tolstoy), who married his mother, Zoe, a mistress, shortly after he was born, despite strong church opposition to what would be his 4th union, when even second marriages were suspect. As the singular male offspring, he was proclaimed co-emperor in 911, and the following year succeeded his father on the latter’s death, with his mother serving as regent until 919, before she was sent to a convent. Sickly and sensitive, he suffered a lonely childhood filled with unknowns, although he also possessed a lively mind and great curiosity, which would subsequently serve him well. Able to thwart a scheme of marrying him to the tsar of the Bulgarians, and through diplomacy and defense by his able admiral Romanus Lecapenus (Jay-Z), he held his position. In a marriage of convenience, he wed Helena, the daughter of Romanus, in 919, and crowned the admiral co-emperor the following year, losing much of his power to the latter’s family. His marriage would later prove harmonious, producing his successor, Romanus II (Notorious B.I.G.), along with one short-lived son and five daughters. Disinvolved himself from the politics of the empire, while maintaining his prestige and position, through the diplomatic maneuverings of his father-in-law, allowing him to work full-time on his scholarly pursuits, an interest he had inherited from his progenitor. Systematized knowledge and encouraged encyclopedic works, while leaving a strong legacy of writings which would prove to be an excellent primary source of information on the Byzantine empire. “”De Administrato Imperio,” a handbook on foreign policy, was his most important work, while “De ceremoniis” covered the minutiae of power behind Byzantium. Wished to write a whole his/story of the empire, although never had the time. Recruited scholars, dabbled in the fine arts, proving himself a skilled artist, while vastly preferring the company of intellectuals to court officials. By the time he reached adulthood, he was tall, bearded, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered, with none of the sickliness of his youth. In 944, he thwarted a powergrab by the emperor’s sons, and he banished them the following year, ruling alone until the end of his reign, continuing the policies of his former co-emperor, while crowning his son Romanus. Continued his scholarly pursuits, while his wife proved an enthusiastic administrator, as he delegated authority rather than being a hand’s on leader. Helped develop the empire’s system of higher education, while showing himself to be an astute judge of people, picking appropriate figures to head the various divisions of government, save for the eunuch monk, Polyeuctus, whom he made patriarch of Constantinople, to his subsequent regret. Able to retake some territory lost to the Arabs, while pursuing an active diplomatic life with various foreign courts. Died in his own bed after fourteen years of rule, surrounded by his grieving family. Succeeded by his son, Romanus II. Inner: Cerebral, scholarly and somewhat timid, using his high office to accrue to his own intellectual development, while evincing enough of a sense of state to weather the various crises thrown his way. Conscientious, competent and a hard worker, good-humored, and always courteous. Enjoyed both drinking and eating, but never overindulged himself in either. Always preferred diplomacy to war, and was a passionate collector of manuscripts and works of art. Pen-in-hand lifetime of utilizing high office to further his own sense of his/story and state, while leaving an impressive written legacy of his imperial stay, in preparation for delving full bore into the literary life in his subsequent go-rounds.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS NOTORIOUS BIG MAN:
Storyline: The poetic provocateur whets his large appetite for self-destruction and notoriety with a keen esthetic sensibility that usually leads him down doomed paths.
Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) (1972-1997) - American musician. Outer: Parents were both Jamaican immigrants, mother was a pre-school teacher, close with latter, who ultimately wrote a book about him. Grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, 6’3” and well over 300 pounds. Dropped out of school at 17 and became a crack dealer, only to spend 9 months in a North Carolina prison in a deal-gone-sour. On his release, he borrowed a friend’s 4-track tape recorder, and pressed some rap tapes, which got airplay, and by 1993 he had released his first single, the inelegantly titled, “Party and Bullshit.” Signed by Puffy Combs to his Bad Boy records, and his first album, “Ready to Die,” which was released in 1994, established him as an authentic voice of hip-hop culture, while winning the title of Rapper of the Year at the 1995 Billboard Awards. Despite a wry wit and a gentleness that belied his huge frame, his calling demanded an act-out thuggery which saw him at variance with the authorities on several occasions for drugs, violence and weapons charges. Close friends with Tupac Shakur initially, the two became bitter enemies in 1994, after the latter was shot and robbed and blamed it on the former for failing to warn him about it. Their contretemps created a divisive hip-hop rift between east and west coasts, although Tupac later admitted he was just frothing publicity for both. Formed Junior M.A.F.I.A., which introduced several of his friends to the public, and married Faith Evans, a hip-hop artist in 1994, 2 children from union. A controversy remains whether he was in Las Vegas the day Tupac Shakur was killed. Met his own end, which he had predicted in song, the following year when he was gunned down in a drive-by in Los Angeles after a party. His public funeral caused a riot in Brooklyn, and his posthumous album, “Life After Death,” with the mordantly prescient line, “you’re nobody til somebody kills you,” further enhanced his reputation. His killer has yet to be found. Only lived to see one of his albums released, despite the tremendous popularity of his subsequent post-mortem releases. Protracted court battles around cover-ups would continue long after his unsolved death. Assayed on film by Jamal Woolard in Notorious, a cinematic bio released in 2009. Inner: Witty, perceptive, with a gift for limning the life around him. Sacrificial life to the violent arena of his times, as he continues to explore abrupt endings and the more visceral side of existence, from a strongly outer male perspective. Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) - Russian poet. Outer: Father was an impoverished nobleman, who became a forester. Both parents were descended from Cossacks, mother was Ukranian. Youngest of 3. On his sire’s death of septicemia, when he was 13, the penniless family moved to Moscow. Joined the Bolshevik party at 15 and was arrested 3 times, while being dismissed from school in 1908, because his mother could no longer pay tuition. Began writing poetry the following year in solitary confinement, although his first efforts were all confiscated. Large and striking, with a perennial posture of adolescent braggadocio. On his release, he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, and became involved with the Futurists, while continuing his political activism. Moved to St. Petersburg and made his in-your-face public debut as a poet in 1912, attacking the cherished literary icons of the past, and in 1914, found himself dismissed from art school for his political insouciance. Rejected as a volunteer in the beginning of WW I, he spent the war working as a draftsman for a military automobile school. In 1915, he started an affair with a literary critic’s beautiful wife,Lilya Brik, who would figure in his subsequent verse. By that time, he was a recognized public voice, so much so, that 2 years later, he was made official poet of the fledgling Communist government. Wrote the first Soviet play where myth and biblical elements reflected on modern Russian life, while desiring to become a poet of the masses, without any real idea of how to do so. A self-proclaimed ‘13th apostle,’ he began working for the People’s Commissariat of Education and for the Russian Telegraph Agency, while both trying to conform to revolutionary ideals with his works and at the same time denouncing traditional aesthetics. Edited a controversial journal, and gave lectures and recitals throughout Russia and abroad, gaining a worldwide reputation, thanks to visits to the U.S., Mexico and Cuba, as well as Britain and Germany. While in the U.S., he unknowingly fathered a daughter, not to find out until 1929, when his inamorata, Elli Jones, met him secretly in France. Joined a more radical group of writers, declaring himself a tribune of the revolution, and eventually committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart as his final revolutionary act, because he felt the communist bureaucracy was too powerful to overcome, and saw his own creativity stifled by it. Had an incomparable gift for language, while writing of the trinity of love, God and revolution. Wished to take the place of God, while seeing love and revolution as key to humanity’s problems. Introduced ordinary speech and slang into poetry, and gave Russian poetic language a whole new direction. Inner: Vulgarian and sentimentalist. Continually falling in love with unattainable women. Totally self-involved, but also truthful, unselfish and loyal. Self-worshipping lifetime of playing the self-involved revolutionary to the hilt, before consuming himself in the passion of his beliefs. Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) - Russian poet and novelist. Outer: Son of a retired army captain, an ancestor had been a Scottish soldier of fortune in Muscovy employ. Mother was the child of a wealthy proprietress, and she died when he was 3, leaving him in the care of a wealthy grandmother who did continuous custody battle with his father over him. Received an excellent education from tutors, but was often ill as a child. At 14, his grandmother moved with him to Moscow so that he could attend the university there. Began writing lyric poetry, learned English, and was deeply affected by the English poet Lord Byron (Bernardo Bertolucci). Forced to leave school for disciplinary reasons, he entered a military school in St. Petersburg, and wrote several plays. Commissioned in the Hussars, he penned an elegy mourning Alexander Pushkin’s (Tupac Shakur) death by duel, and was arrested for it and briefly imprisoned. Afterwards, he was posted in the Caucasus and took part in fighting against the native tribes there. On his return to St. Petersburg, he finally won the fame he craved, but found the capital to be oppressive. Showed disrespect to the czar’s daughters, and after being arrested for dueling with the son of the French ambassador, he was sent in 1840 to a line regiment in the Caucasus on orders of the czar himself. Decorated for bravery and allowed, through the intercession of important friends, to return to St. Petersburg. Tried to retire from the army, but was sent to Piatigorsk instead, where his wit and need to be centerstage, occasioned a duel with an army officer, and he died as a result of it. Seen as 2nd only to Pushkin in his lyrical abilities. Best remembered for his novel, A Hero of Our Time, the tale of a doomed icon. Inner: Melancholic, pessimistic and witty, a classic romantic. Great love for nature, passionate. Anti-authoritarian lifetime of profound and belligerent alienation, producing some great literary works but ultimately being violently undone by his own vitriolic temper. Vasily Tredyakovsky (1703-1769) - Russian poet and scholar. Outer: Father was a priest who allowed him to study Latin with the Capuchin friars. Became obsessed with a desire to learn as much as he could and fled to Moscow at 20 to study at the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy, then 2 years later went to the Hague, where he learned French from the Russian ambassador, after which he studied theology and humanities in Paris for 3 years. Returned home to find his family dead of the plague and his property stolen. Had to Moscow and then St. Petersburg, where he was appointed translator at the Academy of Sciences. Expected to write poems for solemn occasions, he was treated as a jester at the court and once beaten by a minister. In his late 30s, he married and afterwards received the rank of professor of Russian and Latin. Became the first professional Russian writer and one of the few commoners in early Russian literature. His early work was written in spoken Russian but his later oeuvre became obscure, grotesquely mixing the vernacular with the grossly elaborate. His work was inconsistent and verbose but touched on many of the innovations that would become standard in later Russian poetry. Because of his quarrelsome behavior, he made many enemies among his fellow intelligentsia and was virtually ostracized. 14 years later, he was forced to resign, and died in poverty and oblivion. Inner: Combination of humility and arrogance. Sensitive and indecisive. Insightful, but often mocked and parodied. Dualistic lifetime of taking his unintegrated character to the extreme of alienating one and all against his uneven but obvious talent. Romanus II (938-963) - Byzantine Basileus. Outer: Oldest son of Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (Tupac Shakur). Mother, Helena, was the daughter of the emperor Romanus I (Jay-Z), after whom he was named. Married as a child to the illegitimate daughter of the king of Italy, who changed her name to Eudokia. Crowned co-emperor at the age of 7. Lost his intended when he was 11, and petitioned his sire to chose his own bride, which turned out to be an innkeeper’s daughter named Anastaso, whose name was changed to Theophano when they wed in 956, and she would prove to be an extremely able ally to him. Four children from the union, including his successors, Basil II (Kim ll Sung) and Constantine VIII (Kim Jong-il) as well as two daughters, one of whom married the Grand Prince of Kiev, Vladimir (Godfrey Reggio), to add to the latter’s long list of wives and concubines, although he converted to Christianity to do so and mended his wicked, wicked ways. Succeeded to the throne in 959 for his own brief run, while rumors abounded he had committed patricide through poison. Purged the court of those he deemed unfavorable to both him and his wife, including his mother and four sisters who were all sent to convents. Had good people in key posts, allowing him to pursue his own pleasures, while the empire remained in the capable hands of his appointees, both at home and in the field, allowing him to recapture Crete from the Muslims in 961, which occasioned a huge massacre, and then liberate other Asia Minor cities, fattening his treasury considerably in the process. Died after being injured on a hunting expedition, and was succeeded by his most powerful general, Nicephorus II (Chiang Kai-shek). Inner: Pleasure-loving, with the instinctive ability to delegate authority to highly competent individuals, allowing him to enjoy the fruits of power, without having the crown weigh particularly heavy on his shoulders. Royal lifetime of overseeing a rebounding empire through dint of his appointments, rather than his actions, as prelude to his joining his predecessors in the world of letters, rather than politics, later on in the millennium.

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PATHWAY OF THE WRITER AS ROMANTIC SPIRITUALIST:
Storyline: The introspective mystic investigates the divergent worlds of illusion and reality within the context of his deep love for the divine and his unfortunate placement in a martial world uninterested in the saving grace of its soul.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) - German novelist. Outer: Father was a religious journalist, publisher and missionary. Decided to become a poet at the age of 12, after reading Friedrich Holderlin (Bob Dylan). Rebellious as a youth, he attended Latin school, studied theology at Seminar Maulbronn and was expelled from the Gynasium at Camistadt. Apprenticed to a bookseller, he assisted his sire for 6 months, then apprenticed in a clock factory, and worked in book shops and for a book dealer, before inaugurating a writing career that would span 6 decades. Slender and erect. Married Maria Bernoulli, a photographer, in 1904, for 19 years, before divorcing, 3 sons from the union. His early novels of romantic dreams and German idylls brought him lasting fame. During WW I, he was rejected for military service, then edited a periodical for prisoners of war and served as a volunteer worker through the German consulate in Switzerland on behalf of German prisoners of war. His continual calls for peace diminished his reputation, and he had to publish his next work under a pseudonym, only to embarrassedly reveal its true authorship when it won a prize for new writers. Became a Swiss citizen in 1923, and after divorcing, married Ruth Wenger the following year for only a few months, before divorcing once again. His third wife, Ninon Auslander, whom he wed in 1931, was the manager of his business affairs, and he outlived her. Remained aloof from politics during the Weimar republic, and his works were continually published during the Nazi regime. Wrote a poetical life of the Buddha, in Siddhartha, and he is best known for the novel The Bead Game, in which he tried to reconcile the active and contemplative lives. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. Developed leukemia and died of a brain hemorrhage. Despite cliched writing and derivative thought, he has remained a popular author. Inner: Wanted to escape the modern world through the celebration of nature and the mystical. German romantic, saw the external world as his enemy. Unhappy with the formal religions of the West, he looked to the East and within to resolve the conflict of living in a world where he held the belief, ‘God was dead.’ Felt at one point music would liberate him, but returned to language as his true creative strength. Also was an amateur painter and a violinist. Third eye lifetime of struggling with a strong sense of spirituality in a world seemingly untouched by true religiosity, while trying to resolve activism with contemplation as his true pathway. Edward Morike (1804-1875) - German poet. Outer: Mother was a preacher’s daughter with a lively sense of humor and creative imagination that she passed down to her son. Father was a physician. Had a relatively happy childhood and a rich inner life. His sire died when he was 13 and he was packed off to an uncle, whose intellectually stimulating household further stoked him. The following year he was sent to a Protestant seminary school in order to prepare for a clerical career. Despite being a mediocre student, he was imbued with the natural surroundings of the school, as well as love for a cousin. Went to the Univ. of Tubingen, had a passionate romance with a waitress, and fell in with the literary circle that hosted insane poet Friedrich Holderlin (Bob Dylan). After graduation, he spent the next 8 years as a country preacher, which he found extremely confining. Had a 4 year engagement with a pastor’s daughter, which was finally broken off because the family felt he wasn’t dedicated to his profession. Became a full pastor, living with his mother and sister, but was more interested in writing poetry and collecting rocks. Published his first volume of verse in his mid-30s, and 5 years later retired from his position on a small pension because his parishioners felt he neglected his duties. In his late 40s, he unhappily married Margarete von Speeth, a Catholic, after a long courtship, but the relationship deteriorated because of their religious differences and the continual presence of his devoted sister. Wrote a pastoral epic and his masterwork, Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag, based on a single incident in the life of composer Wolfgang Mozart (Stevie Wonder), to whom he felt a strong affinity. Wrote little in his last 2 decades, but was honored for his work, and spent a little over a decade as a professor of literature at a women’s college, while lecturing to women’s groups on literature. Frequently ill in his last years and plagued by domestic disputes, he finally separated from his wife and died shortly afterwards. Inner: Introspective and romantically imbued with nature and the passion of ideal romance. Alternately good-humored and irritable, using his duality as a creative spur. God-imbued lifetime of lack of commitment to anything save his own sense of poetic spirituality, and the release of his graceful and precise prose. Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664) - German poet and dramatist. Outer: From an aristocratic family, father died when he was 5, mother passed on 7 years later. Afterwards, he lived with his older brother, a pastor, who sent him to school. Learned a host of languages, and while a student composed his first Latin poem. Supported himself afterwards by tutoring in Danzig, completing his education in the Gymnasium there. Returned to Silesia where he was a tutor for the children of a wealthy noble family, thoroughly enjoying his position until the death of his patron in 1638. Emigrated to Amsterdam and then Leiden, where he became a lecturer on a variety of subjects. Afterwards he traveled throughout the Netherlands, France and Italy. After turning down a summons to occupy a professorial chair, he returned to his native area in 1647. Suffered much from privation, as well as the incessant warfare in his homeland, which made him bitter and melancholy, and was reflected in his writing. Took the post of Landsybdujys in Glogau, holding it until his death. Particularly adept at sonnets, although his lasting fame came from writing in dramatic genres, in which he promulgated a view of religious constancy to the point of martyrdom. Called the father of German drama. Inner: Great seriousness of purpose, with a high artistic view of literature. Deeply religious sensibilities, with a continual interest in the dualities of illusion and reality. Melancholic lifetime of turning the unhappiness of his times and his person into his perception of great art.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS ADVENTUROUS STORYTELLER:
Storyline: The Scandinavian Scheherezade carries her lost father in her slowly vanishing body, while spinning a web of tales around romances both lost and found, which she both acted out and imagined.
Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) (1885-1962) - Danish writer. Outer: Father was an adventurous, romantic naval officer who had lived for 3 years with Amerindians as a trapper. Later wrote about his experiences under his own name as well as his aboriginal name, ‘Bogaros.’ 2nd child, one of 3 sisters, and clearly her sire’s favorite. Tutored at home by a governesses. Her beloved father hanged himself when she was 10, and she became obsessed as a teenager that he lived on through her. Studied English at Oxford Univ., and painting at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen, Paris and Rome. Had an unrequited love for her cousin, but eventually married his twin brother, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, a philanderer, big game hunter and writer, in her late 20. Was malevolently gifted with syphilis by her husband, and suffered the lingering effects of the dis-ease the rest of her life. Went with him to manage a 6000 acre coffee plantation in British East Africa from 1913 to 1921. After her spouse died, she had an affair with Dennis Finch Hatton, a handsome English pilot and hunter who served as the first audience for her tales. Saw herself as Scheherazade, the exotic Arabian storyteller. Began writing, as the farm suffered continual financial setbacks under her direction. Forced to give it up in 1931 with falling coffee prices, and Hatton died just before she left Africa for home. The romance was later celebrated in the movie, Out of Africa, which was a compilation of 4 of her books. As skillful a writer in English as she was in Danish, using the pen name, Isak Dinesen. Ill health greatly hampered her creative output. Her manuscript for Winter’s Tales was smuggled out of the country during the Nazi occupation in 1942. After surgery in the 1950s, she was unable to eat properly again, and became emaciated, never weighing more than 85 pounds. Eventually died from her physical condition. Inner: Aristocratic, sophisticated, moody, as well as sentimental. Storybook lifetime of adventure and romance, only to succumb to a body that could no longer digest her full life experience. Sofia von Knorring (Sofia Zelow) (1797-1848) - Swedish novelist. Outer: Father was a military officer of Polish noble extract, who became Master of the Swedish Royal Household. Mother was of the lower nobility. Enjoyed a privileged upbringing, and was educated by governesses and private tutors. In her early 20s, she married a military officer from the petty nobility, from whom she took the title of baroness. Beautiful and witty, she was a star of the provincial salons she frequented. Anonymously published her first work, The Cousins, which delineated her world, and then wrote in rapid succession a whole series of novels under the pseudonym, “The Author of the Cousins,” while further chronicling her milieu of manners, manors and ballrooms, with the eros of romance at their core. She only once deviated from this pattern via the first Swedish peasant novel, and probably her best work. Her major theme was the struggle of a young woman between her duty as a wife and mother, and the romantic pull of forbidden love. Inner: Probably worked out her own inner conflicts of life in a stifling milieu, through her imaginatively acting out on paper instead of real life. Corseted lifetime of developing her literary skills, before coming back to act out her sense of romance far more directly in a much more open environment. Leonora Christina, Countess Ulfeldt of Schlewsig-Holstein (1621-1698) - Danish writer. Outer: Father was the king of Denmark, and her mother was his second wife. One of 5 daughters, and a son. Spent her first six years on the island of Fyn with her maternal grandmother. In 1630, her parents separated, and never saw one another again, while she was raised in the royal palace, becoming her father’s favorite, thanks to a combination of beauty and intelligence. Engaged at 9 and married at 15 to Corfitz Ulfeldt, a 30 year old, who was appointed Governor of Copenhagen by the king. Her husband was made Royal Seneschal 7 years later, and she was viewed as the country’s first lady. Despite their high position, her spouse lusted after even more power, and following the death of the king in 1559, her older half-brother assumed the throne, creating tensions galore twixt both couples, particularly by the queen towards her, for supporting her mate’s shenanigans. The duo and their family were forced to flee to Sweden, where her husband found a high court position, and continued to conspire not only against the Danish crown, but the Swedish one as well, resulting in a death sentence imposed upon him. The execution was delayed, and the duo and family fled back to Denmark, where they were promptly jailed. After giving up all his proprietary rights, they were released, but her compulsively conspiratorial spouse was soon at it again, and while he fled capture, she was caught in England in 1563, brought back and imprisoned in the Blue Tower of the palace. Although her husband died soon afterwards, she remained a gilded prisoner for 22 years, showing stoic courage and face, while composing hymns and religious songs, as well as a memoir, “Memory of the Misery of the Imprisoned Countess Leonora Christina,” which was written for her children, so that they would not think badly of their parents. After the death of the queen in 1685, she was released and spent the rest of her life in a cloister. Inner: Shackled lifetime of forced self-examination and expiation for the deeds of a conniving mate, in her own guilty need to punish herself for power sought through far less than noble aims.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS STORYTELLING MEISTERSINGER:
Storyline: The shadowless outsider recreates vanished worlds and keeps them alive through his rare gifts at bringing the past to life by turning his/story into accessible song and story.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (Icek-Hersz Zynger) (1904-1991) - Polish/American writer. Outer: Son and grandson of rabbis. Mother was the daughter of a rabbi, and sharp-tongued and skeptical, while his rabbinical father was so pious, he never looked directly at women, and believed absolutely in Jewish law. His parents often exchanged roles, leaving their children to fend for themselves, while his older brother, whom he adored, became the noted Yiddish writer, Israel Joshua Singer, and his older sister, Hinde Esther, wrote as well. Grew up in a small village near Warsaw, and probably lied about his age to make himself too young for the draft, presenting 1904 as his birth year. In 1907, his father became head of the yeshiva at Radzimin. The following year, when the yeshiva burned down, they moved to the poor Jewish quarter of Warsaw. Fascinated as a child with mystic Jewish tales, and his home life was intellectual and sophisticated. 5’7”, 145 lbs, and a vegetarian the last 3 and 1/2 decades of his life. Grew up in Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto, which became the fount for his creative life, writing about the lives and concerns of Polish Jews. Did not read a secular book until he was 11. In 1917, he moved with his mother and brother to a shtetl or village, before rejoining his father in 1921, and studied for a time at a Rabbinical seminary in Warsaw, but did not see his father’s calling as his own. Gave Hebrew lessons back in his mother’s shtetl, and by his early 20s, saw himself as an abject failure before his brother brought him back to Warsaw as a proofreader on a literary journal. Began writing initially in Hebrew, then switched to Yiddish, the language of his childhood. In 1930, he married Alma Haiman, one son, whom he didn’t see for 20 years, after leaving both behind to come to America in 1935, joining his brother in NYC. Took him a decade to adjust to New World life, particularly among modern Jews, before he found his storyteller’s voice again. His first novel had been published in installments just before he left. Divorced, and in his mid-30s, he married a German refugee, 2 stepchildren from the union. Became a U.S. citizen in 1943. Wrote primarily in Yiddish, serializing his novels and stories in the Jewish Daily Forward. Remained obscure until the English translation of his novel, "Family Moskat" in 1950, then enjoyed a wide readership, particularly because of his ability to present the foibles and weaknesses of shtetl life, rather than an idealized version of it. Worked closely with his translators, realizing he needed to be an American writer to have a career in the U.S. Became the first translated author to appear in The New Yorker, and the first elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters. Lived modestly, wrote by hand most of his life, finally acquiring a typewriter. His longer novels chronicled the effect of the modern world on Jewish families, while his shorter ones dealt with the temptations of evil in various forms, although when he translated them into English, he made them simpler and far less dense. Won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1978. Recreated the lost world of Polish Jewry, with a touch of the supernatural, while acting as a recorder, rather than a commentator. Never truly comfortable with his elevated status as a wide-read author, he died after a series of strokes. Inner: Modest, forthright, intense, plain-spoken, and sharp-witted. Dualistic character, with a need to reinvent himself for a larger audience. Prickly and very fame-conscious. Capable of both cruelty and charm. Strong belief in a need for a belief in God, with whom he felt he had a personal relationship, although rejected religious orthodoxies. Saw his/story in terms of betrayal and self-betrayal. Never felt at home in the brave new world of the U.S., preferring an immigrant milieu. Imbued with a sense of charity for all living things, save his own son. Émigré lifetime of dealing with the longtime theme of displacement, while serving as a literary bridge between the vanished world of Jewish Poland and the modern world that ate it alive. Adelbert von Chamisso (Louis Charles Adelaide de Chamisso) (1781-1838) - French/German writer. Outer: Father was a French count. Born in the family’s ancestral castle. Suffered an unhappy childhood because of a strict governess, despite his warm family. At the onset of the French Revolution, their estate was burned and the family was forced to flee, first to Belgium, then Holland, then Germany. His father joined the émigré army, while the rest of the family was reduced to near destitution. Nearly apprenticed to a carpenter, became a page instead in the royal household in Berlin, where he was later joined by relatives. Attended a military academy, and was eventually commissioned a lieutenant in the infantry. His family returned to France under the general amnesty in 1801. Unhappy in the army, he plunged into literature, with a familiarity with both French and German letters. Wrote in German, beginning with a play, then poetry, following the model of the Teutonic romantics. Obsessed with a French widow, who made his life miserable and finally disappeared after nearly a decade. Fell in with a young crew of Berlin romantic poets and helped found the Nordsternbund, named for the romantic search of knowledge. Studied Greek to read the original classics, and also became familiar with German folk tales. Unable to leave the army for further studies, he put his frustrations into a short story and play fragment, exploring his basic life theme of interior freedom and exterior restrictions. Returned to France, but discovered he was far more German than he realized. Finally resigned his commission, in his late 20s. Further disillusioned by failing to get a coveted teaching post in Paris, he wound up doing translations, and through them working his way into the circle of salonist & writer Germain de Stael (Clare Booth Luce), with whom he was entranced. Began studying botany with her son, which proved to be his life’s work. Enrolled as a medical student in Berlin in his early 30s, then was forced to flee when war broke out. As a man without a country, he wrote his most famous work, Peter Schlemihl, about a man without a shadow. Freed himself through the story to pursue science. Returned to Berlin, then went on a 3 year Russian expedition around the world. Published his findings afterwards, established his name, and married Antonia Piaste, who was 20 years younger, and with whom he had 9 children. Employed by the Botanical Gardens in Berlin, eventually becoming its director. Continued writing poetry and unsuccessful plays, he outlived his wife by a year, and died soon after resigning his directorship. His poetry was always well-received, and was occasionally put to music. Inner: Perennial outsider, nonromantic view of the world, despite association with romantics. Filled with self-doubt and an equal questioning of the world and its limitations. Liberal, stoic, thought little of prestige or money. Bridge figure between romantics and naturalists. Shadowless lifetime of incarnating into privilege, rather than his usual humble circumstances, only to be humbled by circumstance and forced to do internal battle with his sense of misplacement, by scientifically objectifying the natural world. Hans Sachs (1494-1576) - German shoemaker, poet and dramatist. Outer: Father was a tailor. Attended Latin school, and then was apprenticed to a shoemaker. During his apprenticeship, he traveled widely throughout Germany, always visiting the local Singschulen wherever he went. During that time he was taught the Meisterlied by a weaver, enabling him later to become a master spinner of tales and stories. Song/storytelling had become the province of the artisans of the middle-class, after an earlier tradition of troubadours, gentry and knights as the holders of Germany’s culture. Established himself as a master shoemaker in Nuremberg in his mid-20s. Married Kunigunde Creutzerin 2 years later, and after his wife’s death, 40 odd years following, he wed Barbara Harscherin. Broke the rigidity of traditional storytelling through his tales, using classical, Biblical and medieval subjects with a strong overlay of Renaissance humanism. Strongly supported the German Reformation, whose ideals he used in some of his works. Extremely prolific, with over 4000 songs, 1700 tales and fables and 208 dramas to his credit. Best remembered for his Shrovetide plays, in which he probably was a performer. Inner: Meistersinger lifetime of bringing to life medieval Germany through his prolific imagination and the repetitive rhythms of his existence, before dipping into movement and misplacement as his primary song and storytelling motivation.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS MAD PROPHET AND VISIONARY:
Storyline: The sci-fi seer sees far too much for his own good, in his unintegrated stays on a planet that can barely contain his imagination, let alone the wild musings and ramblings of his unfettered, but not unlettered, mind.
Philip K. Dick (Philip Kindred Dick) (1928-1982) - American science fiction writer. Outer: Of German descent. Father was a fraud investigator for the US Dept. of Agriculture. One of a pair of premature twins, he was separated from his sister Jane (Grete Trakl) after five weeks and she subsequently died in a hospital, reputedly from an allergy to their mother’s milk. Later blamed his mother for the tragedy, and it would remain a permanent scar on his psyche, leaving him feeling unfinished for the rest of his life. His parents separated and divorced when he was 5. Raised by his mother, first in Washington, DC, then Berkeley, where he finished high school, graduating with fellow future sci-fi superstar Ursula Le Guin, although the two never met. Made the San Francisco Bay area his base afterwards. Briefly went to UC Berkeley, majoring in German, but soon dropped out, because of an aversion to ROTC training. Worked in a record store, while claiming to have a hosted a classic music program on radio. In 1948, he made the first of five failed marriages to Jeanette Marlin, which ended after six months. In 1950, he wed Kleo Apostolides, a left-wing political activist, who drew the curiosity of the FBI, only to divorce in 1958. The same year he married Anne Williams Rubinstein, one daughter from the union, which ended in 1964. Published his first short story in 1951, and became a full-time writer afterwards. His first novel, “Solar Lottery,” saw print four years later. Over the next decade and a half, he produced 100 short stories and two dozen novels, many of them science fiction classics, while also making a stab at mainstream literature to little effect, publishing only one conventional work during his life. Won the Hugo Award for “The Man in the High Castle,” in 1962, an alternate reality tale where the U.S. loses WW II. In 1966, he married Nancy Hackett, one daughter from the union, which ended in 1970. His final marriage was to Tessa Busby in 1973, which produced a son, before ending in divorce, as well, in 1977, and a suicide attempt on his part. Won a second Hugo in 1974 for “Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said,” another tale of a parallel universe. Continually haunted by poverty throughout his working life, he poured out his paranoid fantasies as if possessed by them, seeing conspiracies everywhere, while feeling impelled to keep writing to keep himself afloat, occasionally employing pen names, particularly Jack Dowland, because of a connection felt with early English composer John Dowland (Freddy Mercury). Although never noted as a stylist, his imaginative plots more than made up from his focus on story rather than wordsmanship. Felt he wrote with his hands, rather than his brain, and pounded out many of his stories at an astonishing rate of 80 to 100 words a minute. Kept himself heavily lubricated with amphetamines all during his working life, which would have a severe effect on not only his physical health, but his mental well-being as well. In 1971, his house was blown-up and papers stolen by groups unknown, which sent him down to Orange County in Southern California for his last decade, to be a stranger in a strange land. Often collapsed at the end of projects, and in 1974 had a schizophrenic breakdown, replete with visions for weeks, which convinced him that he was undergoing a profound religious experience, which he would continue to explore in all his later novels. Felt himself double-lifed at the time, as his own persona and as a Christian persecuted by the Romans, which would transmute into one of his most interesting and self-revealing works, “VALIS,” a gnostic attempt at explaining the larger dynamic of spiritual Earthlife through its connection to galactic channels. Had a heart attack in 1976, and died of a second one following a stroke, six years later. Buried next to his twin sister, uniting with her once more in death. Wound up with an even greater reputation posthumously than he ever enjoyed during his life, thanks in large part to the films made from his work beginning with Blade Runner, the year he died, which eventually led to the wholesale optioning of his works, and the explosion of his estate and his reputation to mega-proportions, a luxury he never enjoyed while breathing the perfervid air of the planet. Inner: Fascinated by deceptions and false realities, with many of his heroes discovering they had been operating under complete societal delusions. Saw dark forces controlling much of Earthly life, and continually questioned what most people took for granted as being tangible and real. Strongly metaphysical in his overview, as well as Jungian, while using his writings as a purge for his own feelings of incompleteness. Able to channel ancient languages at different points of his life, as someone who was neither limited by time nor space in his self-view. Twin soul lifetime of losing half of himself in the beginning of his go-round, and then spending the rest of his self-torturing existence searching for it through his writings and relationships. Georg Trakl (1887-1914) - Austrian poet. Outer: Of Hungarian and Czech descent. Grew up in comfortable middle-class circumstances, but his mother suffered depression throughout his childhood, which left him prone to the same debility, although she also influenced his taste in art and music. Father was an ironmonger. Had a sister, Grete, who was five years younger, and their all-abiding incestuous love would be a continual obsession and theme of his in his later writings. She would remain his closest companion, and like him, a drug addict as well, before becoming a pianist, and prematurely dying three years after he did. Although Protestant, he attended a Catholic elementary school, and began writing poetry at the age of 13. Began experimenting with opium two years later, as well as drinking and exploring his sexuality through prostitutes, who he used as an audience for his monologues, feeling a need to uplift and teach them. Showed little interest in his studies, and was viewed as a total misfit by his teachers, while displaying the signs of a divided self that would inform his entire life. Dropped out of school, and worked for a pharmacist for three years, while continuing his pursuit of altered states. Decided to become a pharmacist himself, although the choice may have been heavily tainted by his desire to keep his larder filled with drugs. Made an attempt at playwriting with two short pieces that failed to find an audience, while his poetry at this juncture was bland and impersonal. Also had a strong interest in architecture and painting, although did not pursue either discipline. In 1908, he moved to Vienna to study pharmacy and fell in with a crew of bohemians, who helped him publish some of his work. His father died shortly before he got his degree, and he enlisted in the army for a year, to find some sense of discipline. When he returned to civilian life, he found himself even more of a misfit, and in 1912, he reenlisted and became a military pharmacist in Innsbruck. Once again the artistic community there discovered him, and he found a patron in Ludwig von Ficker, the editor of an art journal, who began publishing him regularly. His first collected works, “Gedichte” or “Poems,” came out in 1913. Wrote in a spare, stark manner, which personalized the apocalyptic sense that the world that he saw all around him was about to implode. Ficker brought his work to the attention of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who agreed to support him so he could focus on his writing. Volunteered as a medical officer on Austria’s entry into WW I and was sent to Poland, but suffered a nervous breakdown while caring for the overwhelming number of wounded soldiers there. Confined to a hospital, where he wrote several poems on the evils of war, then began to fear an indictment and a court martial because of his collapse. Tried shooting himself, although was stopped, and placed under close observation. Slipped into the deepest of depressions, and subsequently killed himself with an overdose of cocaine, while Wittgenstein, who had been informed of his state, was in the process of rushing to his hospital, although arrived too late to save him. His work would have much biblical imagery in it, while showing a fascination with night, autumn and death. A posthumous collection of poems was issued the following year, “Sebastien im Traum,” and his high reputation has been consistent ever since, as yet another of Europe’s poetic lights cast into permanent darkness by the insensate horsemen of the apocalypse of WW I. Inner: Divided, depressive and extremely self-destructive. Constantly anxious about his sister, who served as his anima, and was the only true love of his life. Mine own worst enemy lifetime of trying to transmute his endless angst into high art, before predictably succumbing to a far lower draw, toward complete and utter self-obliteration. Francesco Borromini (Francesco Castelli) (1599-1667) - Swiss/Italian architect. Outer: Son of a stonemason. Trained in Milan as a mason, then pursued a career as a draftsman and stonemason in Rome in the workshop of his relatives, beginning in his early 20s. Quickly established himself as a talented carver and became head draftsman there, while becoming an experienced architectural designer, through intensive study. Changed his name to Borromini in 1627, perhaps in an effort to alter his hidden past, which may have seen him the victim of parental abuse. After the death of his uncle in 1629, the sculptor Gian Bernini (Michelangelo) was awarded many of his family’s undertakings by the pope. Provided invaluable assistance to the start of that sculptor’s extraordinary career, before eventually breaking with him in 1633. He then went on, on his own, to become a master of baroque architecture, a form he is credited with inventing, while executing numerous original works in an unorthodox style, and exerting enormous influence over Northern Italian architecture, employing Roman antiquity as one of his design bases. Best known for the small church, S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome, which gave him a European reputation. Always tried to work in the context of the larger urban designs around his buildings, so that they would be a piece of the grander city landscape. Despite many commissions, and many powerful patrons, including the papacy, he had great difficulty in relating to people and his own success. When the last pope who had patronized him died, his successor replaced him with a committee of more conventional architects. At the end of his life, he felt himself increasingly isolated through his alienating personality, and in a profound depression, took his own life by falling on a sword. Inner: Melancholic, celibate, solitary, suspicious and probably schizophrenic. Insisted on personally supervising his building, trusting no one else to erect them as he had designed them. Damaged goods lifetime of giving full artistic expression to his untapped genius, while allowing his unintegrated interior to ultimately undo him, an ongoing theme of his. Hiram Abiff (fl. 10th cent. BZ) - Phoenician architect. Outer: Largely a person of legend, with several conflicting stories appended to his name. Father had been a brassworker, who died early, and he was raised by his widowed mother, to become a master craftsman in a variety of metals. Sent by the king of Tyre to the court of King Solomon (William Randolph Hearst) in Jerusalem, to become the principle architect of the First Temple there, which was constructed under the principles of sacred geometry to stand as a testament to the convergence of both heaven and Earth in one magnificent building. Acquitted himself most handsomely in completing the Temple as a grand master of his art, and then was murdered by a trinity of lessers, when he refused to divulge the secrets of Master Masonry to them. His death would be emblematic of keeping sacred secrets hidden at all costs, and his legacy would serve as part of the rites and ceremonies of Free Masonry, which were adopted nearly two millennia later. Inner: Legendary lifetime of serving as both master and martyr of mystery, a role he has continued to assume for himself in a variety of creative disciplines.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS TRANSLATOR OF ESTHETIC SENSIBILITIES:
Storyline: The apolitical aesthete feels forced to express his convictions in a police state and suffers the personal consequences of his love for the beautiful in a society that knows only the ugliness of control and conformity.
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) - Russian writer and poet. Outer: Father was a well-known Jewish portrait painter and friend of writer Leo Tolstoy. Mother was a performing pianist. One of four children, with two sisters, and a brother who became an architect. Only he and his brother would remain in Russia, with his parents and sisters migrating to England around the time of the Revolution. Raised in a highly cultivated environment, with the pianist Alexander Scriabin (Karlheinz Stockhausen) as a summer neighbor, who totally enthralled the young boy, and inspired him to try his inadequate hand at music. Alternately arrogant, moody and insecure as a youngster. Studied music, before realizing he didn’t have the gift for it, then philosophy at Moscow Univ., and also at Marburg in Germany. Joined the futurist group ‘Cetrifuge,’ while at school. Published several volumes of verse, and was looked upon as a poet’s poet, filled with an extremely sensitive sensibility. Confused, rather than enlightened by politics, he welcomed the 1917 Russian Revolution, as did many starry-eyed writers and artists, before coming to see its soul-crushing oppressiveness. Unfit for the military because of a broken leg in childhood, he was sent to a chemical factory in the Urals. Married painter Yevegnia Vladimirovna in 1923, divorced in 1931. Did translation work, most notably Shakespeare into Russian, as well as German, French, Armenian and Georgian poets. Enjoyed some immunity under dictator Joseph Stalin, despite the criticism of “formalism” and “privacy” of his apolitical works. Married again to Zinaida Nikolevna Neuhaus, a cool, brusque woman, who did not support his inner sense of spirit. Three sons from the union, a pianist, an engineer and a physics student. While working as an editor of a literary magazine, the beautiful, twice-divorced Olga Ivinskaya came into his life. The duo became lovers and she served as his inspiration for Lara in his later panoramic masterwork of self-resurrection, Doctor Zhivago, which was banned in Russia, and made him a subject of political controversy, although parts were published. Ivinskaya was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison in an attempt to silence his critical writings. The child that the duo created died in prison camp. Awarded the Nobel prize for Literature in 1958, but was forced to reject it under pressure from the Soviet regime, after being expelled from the Writer’s Union. Became a broken man by the end of his life, suffering from a host of internalized afflictions, including a heart ailment, stomach bleeding and lung cancer. Following the poet’s death from the latter in his sleep, Ivinskaya was resentenced to the gulag as added punishment, but was eventually rehabilitated during the more liberal Gorbachev regime. Much later, lightning struck a pine tree near his grave, revealing a wire that ran to a bench opposite it that the KGB used as a bug, assuming all who visited it were less than reliable citizens. Inner: Highly cultured, with a deep esthetic sense. Felt all things were interrelated, and used diffuse rhymes and metaphors, combining the simplistic with the complex to allow his language its emotionality. Physically prudish, yet ecstatic in his emotions. Olympian lifetime of pursuing his own poetic sensibilities in a police state, only to be brought thuddingly down to Earth by it, while showing a curious ambivalence to virtually everything that did not smack of high art. Vasily Zhukovsky (1783-1852) - Russian poet. Outer: Son of a wealthy landowner and a captive Turkish girl. Got his name from his godfather, but was disconnected from the family after his father’s death. Attended the Boarding School for Nobility at the Univ. of Moscow, where he became interested in pietism and German & English literature. Began writing in a sentimental style and soon established himself with translations and ballads, introducing romanticism to Russian literature. Fell in love with his niece, which was reciprocated, but her mother felt the union would be sinful. She later married another, but the continuing platonic relationship served as a spur to his poetry of grief and resignation. Served at the epic battle of Borodino in 1812, and his poetic celebration of it made him the most famous poet in Russia. His reputation declined with the rise of Alexander Pushkin (Tupac Shakur), and a lack of interest by the younger generation in his Western-oriented work. Spent the rest of his career at court, as a reader to the dowager empress, and tutor to the future czar, which he found unsatisfactory. In his late 50s, he married the much younger daughter of a painter friend, after retiring from court, and settled in Germany, not to return to Russia. Wrote his major narrative works towards the end of his life, including a translation of the Greek epic The Odyssey, while becoming involved in German mystical thought. Died of dropsy. Viewed as the greatest Russian translator of his time, as well as the poet of Russian inner life. Inner: Kind, self-effacing, dreamy, meticulous craftsman. Melancholic lifetime of dealing with frustrations in love and work, which ultimately dictated a rejection of his native land, despite his literary service to it.

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PATHWAY OF THE PLAYWRIGHT AS ANGRY POLITICAL GYPSY:
Storyline: The manipulative Marxist creates a theater of the engaged and enraged, while exploiting all those around him, after earlier having been summarily removed from this sphere for his cynical, apolitical nihilism.
Bertholdt Brecht (1898-1956) - German playwright and poet. Outer: Born into a well-to-do family. Mother was a Protestant, and daughter of a civil servant, while his father was a Catholic paper mill manager. Raised in the former’s religion, and was strongly influenced by the language of the Lutheran Bible. Began writing poetry as a boy, and was first published when he was 14. Entered the Univ. of Munich medical school with the intention of becoming a doctor, although later dropped out. Drafted during WW I and became an orderly at a military hospital. After the war, he performed his own songs in cabarets as an extremely seductive singer, while writing theater criticism for a left-wing paper. Had an illegitimate son, then married opera singer Marianne Zoff in 1922, only to divorce five years later. Won the Kleist prize and a national reputation the same annum, for Drums in the Night, and moved to Berlin two years later. His early works were extremely angry, focusing on the downtrodden struggling through a disorganized world, although he admitted not liking the teeming mass of humanity. Moved from realism to expressionism in his dramatic works, as he evolved what he called epic theater, combining narrative, montage and argument to arouse and stimulate his audiences. Used sets, lighting and music to theatrical advantage, working most memorably with composer Kurt Weill (Harmony Korine), in his best known work, The Threepenny Opera, based on an English play by John Gay (Donovan). Extremely hostile towards capitalistic social structures and an avowed Marxist, with the ability to transpose his political views into mesmerizing theater. Married his chief actress Helene Weigel, in 1928, 2 children from the union. In 1929, he aligned himself with the Communist Party, and toed their anti-Nazi line over the next 8 years. Thanks to his politics, he had his novels banned in the 1930s, while his plays were either interrupted or forbidden. As a Marxist, he was forced to flee Nazi Germany with his whole complement including his various mistresses, although instead of going to Russia, he lived in several Scandinavian countries. During WW II, he came to the U.S. and worked in Hollywood, where he failed to establish himself as a screenwriter, while finding the whole environment extremely uninspiring. Dressed as if he were part of a worker’s commune, and refused on any level to try to assimilate to American culture. During the war, he wrote his most enduring works, including Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Left the U.S. in 1947 after questioning by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Returned to East Germany where he founded a theatrical company, lived like royalty, and directed the state-supported theater, which his wife continued after his death. Questions remain as to whether he wrote his own plays, or had women he was involved with help him, which seems more and more the case. Received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1955, and the following year contracted a lung inflammation and died of coronary thrombosis. Inner: Icy but magnetic persona, purposefully unwashed, rotting teeth, shabby dresser, but legendary lover. Mesmerizing personality, but used everybody to his own ends. Brilliant wit, with a revolutionary grasp of theater, compassionate in theory, but not at all in practice. Difficult to both work with and be with. Extremely unscrupulous, exploiting everyone with whom he collaborated, particularly women, ultimately becoming a millionaire off the combined labors of others. Seductive lifetime of using his dark character to enlighten the stage as one of the most provocative purveyors of 20th century drama. August von Kotzebue (1761-1819) - German dramatist. Outer: Son of a well-to-do lawyer. Studied law at 2 German universities, and followed his father’s profession at the age of 19. The following year, he was appointed secretary to the Governor-General in St. Petersburg, whom he also assisted as director of the German theatre. Served as a magistrate, then was ennobled and appointed to the High Court of Appeal. Married Friderike von Essen, the daughter of a general, and the first of 3 unions, one son became a well-known explorer. Began his literary career, and by the time he was his mid-20s, was able to retire and devote his entire time to literature. Dramatist at the court theater in Vienna for 2 years beginning in 1797. Became the most popular playwright in Germany, and greatly influenced the development of European theater. Extremely fertile, he wrote over 200 plays, with a particular affinity for melodrama. His works were deliberately superficial and artificial, while exposing and ridiculing traditional ideas of morality and behavior. Returned to Russia in his late 20s, and was arrested and sent to Siberia for life. Released soon after, however, and was given a valuable estate in Livonia, as well as named director of the German Theatre in St. Petersburg. After the death of the czar, he settled in Weimar, then Berlin, where he co-edited a journal that opposed both the classical & romantic literary movements. Returned to Russia, and wrote satirical articles against Napoleon Bonaparte. Became General-Consul in the Department of Foreign Affairs in his early 50s, and was later sent to Weimar to report on Germany, raising the suspicion he had become a spy, which was probably unfounded. Because of his witty contempt for the German democratic movement as well as other unpopular stances, he was well-hated for his intellectual nihilism, particularly by the young and progressive. Moved to Mannheim for his own safety but was fatally stabbed by a fanatical theology student. The royal government used his death as excuse to clamp down on youthful political exuberance. Inner: Egotistical, shallow and cynical. Extremely restless and contentious. Believed theater was solely for the purpose of entertainment. Surface-skimming lifetime of using his dark character to stir passions while exploring theater as a purely escapist phenomenon, a stance he would reverse later on in this series.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS CELEBRATOR & PRISONER Of HERSELF:
Storyline: The sado-masochistic sufferer conjoins with the archetype of that pathology and winds up living a free-wheeling existence exploring her own pathologies, before ultimately becoming trapped in an unhappy body that only offers her unremitting pain, as testament to her own overweening proclivities.
Jane Bowles (Jane Auer) (1917-1973) - American expatriate writer. Outer: Only child of 2nd generation Austro-Hungarian Jews. Her mother had been a teacher, while her father owned a garment company that failed, and eventually worked as insurance agent, before dying of a hypertension attack in the living-room when his daughter was 13. Her progenitor’s criticisms that she was a procrastinator and overly dramatic, haunted her for the rest of her life. Her mother was passionately devoted to her after her father’s death. Broke her right leg falling from a horse, and it never healed correctly. Developed TB of the knee, was sent to Europe for treatment, but walked with a limp afterwards. Attended public schools, then was tutored by a French professor in Switzerland. A confirmed lesbian, she nevertheless married writer Paul Bowles at 21, no children, and no sex after their first year of marriage. Claimed he was her enemy, and totally inimical to her. The duo had a sturm und drang relationship, and she was very promiscuous, while he was alternately abstemious and profligate. The pair often traveled together with a 3rd party. Made a half-hearted suicide attempt in mid-20s. Wrote her first novel in French, and proved to be largely an autobiographical writer. A heavy drinker, with one self-destructive infatuation after another. Enslaved herself to a North African woman who took most of her property, and probably some of her sanity. Traveled widely both with and without her husband. Lived in Central America, Europe, Mexico and NYC, before settling in Tangiers. Wrote novels and plays, then suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and stroke, which deprived her of the ability to read and write. A total invalid the last 16 years of her life, and cared for by her husband, before he had her institutionalized. Wound up comatose at the end of her unhappy existence. Inner: Neurotic, independently co-dependent. Flamboyant and self-doubting. Uninhibited lifetime of letting her wishes and desires run her, to see wherever they would take her, before sinking into herself as a total prisoner of her own body. Aurora Rumelin (1845-c1907) - German writer. Outer: Daughter of a gentleman’s servant. Met her future husband, Leopold Sacher-Masoch (Paul Bowles), under a street lamp in disguise when she came to retrieve a compromising packet of letters a friend of hers had written to him. Wrote under the name of Wanda von Dunachew, after one of his characters. The duo met again and she whipped him unmercifully, insuring his twisted love. In 1873, she decided to marry him for his socially prominent name, but the union was unhappy because of his pathological erotic nature. Continually pregnant by him, while he insisted on being thrashed daily with a nail-studded whip. Three sons from the union, with one short-lived and another dying as a teen. Due to his ongoing pathologies, he insisted she betray him, and eventually she ran off with one of his candidates, Armand Rosenthal, after 15 years of sharing his profound unhappiness. Wrote “Confessions of My Life,” which was published in French many years later, after she had moved to Paris, and spent her declining years in poverty and obscurity. Inner: Sado/masochistic lifetime of continued association with her longtime flagitious mate, until his excess finally proved too excessive for her and she escaped into the more lenient arms of another, then later celebrated her legendary self in her confessions.

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PATHWAY OF THE ARTIST AS ALIENATED MASOCHIST:
Storyline: The peripatetic existentialist gives his name to cruelty, then operates at a deliberate remove to try to integrate his dark view of fate and the human condition with his lighter sensibilities, allowing his fantasy characters and the Otherness of his longtime mate to act out his views, so that he does not have to.
Paul Bowles (1910) - American expatriate writer. Outer: Son of a dentist, who did not want him. Forbidden to play with other children, he grew up profoundly alienated, dabbling in all the arts. Began writing and telling stories at the age of 4. A pretentious youth, he left the Univ. of Virginia for Paris at the age of 18, where he became a protege of Gertrude Stein (Sinead O’Connor), who firmly suggested he not consider poetry as his vocation. Thin, handsome, agile and formal. Continued to travel widely, and used a voluminous correspondence to ground himself, although his letters were astonishingly prosaic. Studied with composer Aaron Copland, and had a close association with composer Virgil Thomson, but he was largely a self-taught musician. Returned to New York, where he was a central figure in the NY theater world, writing the scores for a half dozen plays, creating chamber works and operas and collaborating with playwright Tennessee Williams on a series of songs. Also was the music critic for the New York Herald Tribune for 4 years. Went to Tangiers as the result of a dream in 1931, and settled there for the rest of his life in the late 1940s. Best known work was The Sheltering Sky, based loosely on his adventures in North Africa with his wife, the writer Jane Auer Bowles, whom he married in 1938. Sexually ambivalent, his wife was a lesbian, although the duo were seemingly conjoined in satisfactory manner from his viewpoint, despite only having congress their first year of union. Most of his friends were homophiles, while he alternately admitted to a life of licentiousness and abstinence. Became a focal figure for the Beat literary movement, as ‘Sky’ turned his primary mode of expression from music to literature and translation. Continued to travel widely, with Tangier as his base. Lived in a fifth floor apartment, but forbade having a phone there. Traveled in Europe, Africa, the near and far East, Mexico and South America, and for a short time owned an island off Sri Lanka. Returned only briefly to the U.S., usually in order to teach a writing course. From a highly gregarious beginning, he eventually lived a hermit-like existence, continually manifesting a dual character. Cared for his wife for the last 16 years of her life after she suffered a debilitating stroke. Slowed down by sciatica and cancer in his later years, taking to his bed for the last 2 decades + of his life, although his home was considered a mecca for literati, tourists and acolytes alike, and visitors were usually made welcome. Subject of several documentaries over the last decade of his life, as well biographies and letter collections. Wrote his autobiography, Without Stopping, in 1972. Spent his last several years suffering from a painful nerve ailment in his hips and legs, and a sciatica condition that kept him largely housebound. Died of a heart attack in Tangier’s Italian hospital. Inner: Courteous sensualist, very much into the present moment. Found boredom and monotony perfect inducements for writing, and cultivated those states. Unrevealing, kept himself largely hidden, but had a great curiosity about everything else. Enthusiast of kif, a Moroccan marijuana concoction. Light musician, but dark writer, expressing cruelty via the high esthetics of language, while limning his blocked feelings through the rhythmic charm of music. Witty, enchanting, seductive and elusive. Sheltering sky lifetime of the mind, exploring the dualities of existence through writing, thinking and music, with a longtime difficult mate to ground his soaring, highly esthetic sensibilities. Leopold Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895) - Austrian/German writer. Outer: Father was chief of police, mother was the daughter of a prominent Ruthenian scholar. Oldest child of a wealthy Roman Catholic family that employed governesses, with at least one brother and several sisters. His wet nurse used to tell him dark, cruel tales of his/storical figures, where often the female was the tormentor and the male was the victim. At ten, he peeped on an illicit affair his aunt had, and was beaten afterwards, relishing the punishment. Later witnessed the 1848 uprising in Prague, after the family moved there and was also affected by his sire’s stories of cruelty, acting them out in his little puppet theater. Studied at the Universities of Prague and Graz, then became a privatdozent in his/story at the latter. After a successful initial novel in 1858, he gave up teaching to become a full-time writer, which was broken only by one other teaching post, and a stint in the army. Had an excellent eye for customs, manners and traditions of his native area, Galicia, and wrote of them in a graceful style, punctuated by an excellent sense of character. Best known for "Venus in Furs." Had several mistresses with whom he acted out his fantasies of torment, encouraging them to betray him with other lovers, as well as beat him with whips and birches, beginning in the early 1860s. Had an illegitimate daughter with Caroline Herold, and in 1873, he married a fellow writer, Aurora Rumelin (Jane Bowles), a servant’s daughter who wanted his name more than she wanted him. Despite her willingness to beat him, the union was unhappy and unfulfilling because of his masochistic erotic nature, and the duo later divorced after 15 years of marriage. One son died shortly after birth, and was postceded by two more, with a second dying as a young teen. Awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1883, for his literary output. The pathology of masochism was named after him by a German psychologist, because of its frequent appearance in his works. Extremely restless the last part of his life, moving often, while turning to journalism his final decades, editing several journals and newspapers in Germany. His later work declined, dribbling off into perversity, obscenity and sensationalism, and was written quickly in order to earn money. Eventually married Hulda Meister in 1890, a young German woman, who took care of him as his stability declined. Two daughters and a son from the union. Had many admirers and an equal number of enemies, mostly anti-Semites, for his literary battles against them, spending the latter part of his working life trying to raise awareness about his country’s pathological prejudices. His wife committed him to a sanitarium after he tried to strangle her, and there he lingered for another decade, dead in all but body. Wrote about 80 novels, 100 novellas and 8 dramas, in addition to numerous journalistic pieces. Inner: Pessimistic and masochistic, with an uninhibited imagination that degenerated from literary acuity to mere shock value. Socially aware and an active crusader, along with his various pathologies. Descent into personal hell lifetime of exploring the darker side of his sexuality through the exhibitionism of writing and his own sense of feeling unloved. John Hyrcanus II (?-30BZ) - Judean high priest and ruler. Outer: Son of Alexander Jannaneus (Kim Philby) and Salome Alexandra (Beryl Markham). Brother of Aristolubus II (Albert Camus). Served in the family position of high priest, after his father’s violent rule and equally violent death in 76BZ. Following his mother’s far more benign succession and death in 67BZ, he assumed the rulership of Judea, to become the last of the Hasmonean rulers of that province. Driven from office after only 3 months by his brother, he sought the aid of Antipater (Alfred Krupp), the satrap of Idumaea, a province that his earlier namesake and grandfather, John Hyrcanus I (David Ben-Gurion) had conquered. The satrap, however, had his own agenda, and convinced him to wage war on his brother, which forced both to turn to the Roman general Pompey (Henry Luce). Seeing an opportunity to control Judea through him, Pompey restored him to his civil and spiritual authority, although he held no real power, and wound up a tool of succeeding Roman ambitions. Deprived of and then restored to his office, he finally lost all his power, with the appointment of Antipater’s sons Herod (Adolf Hitler) and Phasael as tetrachs of the newly-renamed Judaea. When Judaea was invaded in 40BZ by the Parthians, his ambitious nephew Antigonus (Reza Abdoh) had them cut off his ears so as to make him ineligible for the priesthood. Forced to go to Babylon, he was allowed to return to Judaea in 36BZ by Herod, only to suffer the ultimate indignity of execution 6 years later. Inner: Vacillating and weak-willed. His ears were symbolically removed as a signal of a land no longer willing to listen to its weaknesses. Self-flagellating lifetime of acting as the masochistic personification of a dying and unheard dynasty, as symbol of his own ongoing fascination with both passivity and pain as his twin statements of being.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS DEMON-RIDDEN CHRONICLER:
Storyline: The restless wanderer trots across the European political landscape with journalistic lance in hand to tilt against the ‘isms’ that defined the 20th century.
Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) - Hungarian/German/English writer. Outer: Parents were assimilated Jews, who were comfortably middle-class, and moved to Vienna at the outbreak of WW I. Had a troubled relationship with authority, and was also completely ambivalent about his roots. 5’8”, stocky, but naturally thin. Educated at the Univ. of Vienna, where he studied engineering, although was expelled after his father’s business failed and he couldn’t pay school fees. After being involved in Zionist organizations, he became a journalist in Palestine, then the Middle East, Paris and Berlin, but lost his position when he joined the Communist Party in 1932 as a response to Nazism. Traveled widely in central Asia, then moved to Paris. Married Dorothy Asher in 1935 so that his wife wouldn’t be deported from Switzerland, but the duo separated several months later and remained amicable. Became a freelance journalist, and was captured while reporting from the Loyalist side of the Spanish Civil War. Although he thought he would be executed, and considered suicide, he was released in 1937 through the intervention of the British government, and found himself famous afterwards. Resigned from the Communist Party and moved back to Paris where he wrote his best known novel, "Darkness at Noon," a testament against the totalitarian state. When it was published he was in solitary confinement in a British gaol as an undesirable alien. Interned in France 1939, but escaped to England, becoming a citizen in 1948, and finding, for the first time, a sense of security and relative comfort for most of the remainder of his life. In 1950, he married Mamaine Paget, his English secretary and a former debutante, but the duo separated a year later and divorced. Continued his writing following the themes of social reform and an interest in a scientific basis for telepathy, while traveling to the east in search of esoteric wisdom. Renounced his political activism in 1955, and in 1965, he married Cynthia Patterson, yet another of his secretaries who was much younger, and she remained devoted to him. After 7 years of crippling Parkinson’s Disease coupled with chronic lymphatic leukemia, he committed suicide via an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol along with his wife in a mutual pact, despite her good health. In his will he endowed a chair in parapsychology at Edinburgh Univ. Wrote some 40 books, the last 30 in English, including several autobiographical tomes. Inner: Restless, manic-depressive, obsessive and constantly in the need of the company of friends. Called himself the “Casanova of causes,” and wound up imprisoned in three countries, while attracting the attention of a host of intelligence agencies. Attractive to women, although treated them crudely, and was compulsively seductive, taking great delight in creating harems for himself, with hundreds of affairs, many of them recorded in his notebooks. Attracted to “beautiful cinderellas, infantile and inhibited,” who could be easily bullied. Allegedly raped the wife of a British M.P. Prickly, alcoholic, prone to fisticuffs and monumentally insecure, although capable of lifelong friendships. Migratory lifetime of bad behavior while exploring ‘isms’ from both sides, including Zionism, materialism and communism, and allowing his penetrating, albeit narrowly focused, mind to journalistically dance across the political embers of Europe’s dramatic 20th theater of ideas and ideals. Ludwig Tieck (1783-1853) - German writer. Outer: Father was a rope-maker. Passionately in love with his sister, which would continue to unbalance him throughout his life. An avid reader from the age of 5, he began writing early, when one of his teachers at the Gymnasium he attended, a writer of horror tales, hired him to pen the final chapters of his works. Wanted to be an actor, but his father objected, and instead he continued his education at several German universities, where he acquired a fund of knowledge on European literature, and soon focused on Elizabethan dramatists other than Shakespeare. Traveled with a companion to the wooded area of southeastern Germany, which aroused his interest in medievalia and would become a background for his later romantic tales. Hired by a publisher to adapt French fluff for German tastes, which aroused his risibilities, but because of his predilection for hallucination and depression, he had to give up the job. Married Amalie Alberti in 1798, one daughter from the union. Began writing the morbid, horrifying stories, based on folk tales, for which he would become known. An excellent satirist, but with a shimmering grip on reality. Hooked up with the romantics, and wrote both poetry and drama, but began suffering from rheumatic fever, which would plague him the rest of his life. Moved to Dresden, where he became a central figure in the literary court there, and became famous for his dramatic readings of Shakespeare, acting out the actor within. Wrote his most famous work, Phantasus, a collection of his varied works connected by conversational links extolling cultured society. Also worked as a drama critic, editor and translator, while establishing the short novel as a German literary form. When his beloved daughter died, he moved to Berlin in 1741 to assist in the direction of the Royal Theater. Denounced the course of romanticism in his later life, and by the time of his death, he was largely forgotten. A critic summed him up as having started as a hack writer of low standards and winding up as a hack writer of high standards, although other sources have been kinder. Inner: True romantic, felt that the artist’s life was the only one worth living. Troubled, obsessive, but dedicated to the upliftment of art. Demon-ridden lifetime of acting out his romantic nature during a creative time that supported his personal obsessions and idiosyncrasies, only to be ultimately consigned as a marginal figure, despite a fevered imagination and an equally tortured soul.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS ANTICLERICAL HUMANIST:
Storyline: Il professore provocatore loves to tweak the sensibilities of conservative traditionalists with his various stances, be they political, sexual or religious, in his ongoing self-appointed role as teacher of the sacred within the mundane.
Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) - Italian filmmaker poet, journalist, actor and painter. Outer: Mother was an elementary schoolteacher, to whom he was extremely close. Father was a lieutenant in the Italian army, who once saved the life of dictator Benito Mussolini, and with whom he was strongly conflicted because of his middle-class values. Older of two brothers. After his sire was arrested for gambling debts in 1926, he moved to his mother’s family house in the Friuli region. Began penning poetry at 7, and following his father’s release, the family moved often, which unsettled him. Initially quite fervid in his religiosity, he would soon turn that ardor towards literature and soccer, taking part in the Fascist government’s emphasis on sports and competition. Hid his true same-sex feelings behind a virile physicality, and remained internally conflicted while growing up. Went to the Literature College at the Univ. of Bologna, and tried to publish a poetry magazine, while utilizing Friulian, a peasant dialect he had learned from his mother. Published his first collection of poetry in 1941, which was well-received. After traveling to Germany, he saw the limits of Fascism vis-à-vis Italian culture, and began his own political transition to communism. Went with his family to Casarsa in northeastern Italy to wait out the war in 1942, only to be drafted just prior to Italy’s capitulation in 1943. After being captured by the Germans, he escaped disguised as a peasant, and returned home, focusing on poetry and trying to steer clear of politics and partisan activity. Along with his mother, he taught those unable to go to school because of the fighting, and had his first homophile affair with one of them. Lost his brother in the latter stages of the larger war, and less than a week later co-founded the Friulian Language Academy, from which he graduated, after writing a thesis on the works of Giovanni Pascoli. Continued penning poetry, as well as a drama, and in 1947, wrote a controversial newspaper article extolling communism’s potential to shepherd in a reborn Italian culture. Became more involved with politics, although in 1949, was expelled from the Communist Party after being arrested on a moral’s charge, which also cost him his teaching position. Remained, however, an avowed Marxist the rest of his life. Moved to Rome afterwards, with his mother. Continued to teach, worked for Italian state radio, and also involved himself with the Cinecitta film studios. In 1955, he published his first novel, “Boys of Life,” a tale of male prostitutes, pimps and thieves, which brought moral charges against him, in his ongoing battle with conservative Italian authority. Similarly, his first film, Accatone! in 1961, which dealt with the Roman underworld, considerably raised conservative hackles. Subsequently used amateurs in his productions, preferring their naturalness and spontaneity to that of seasoned actors, and when he did use professionals, he tried to elicit their unadorned elements rather than their superficial selves. Traveled in India, the Middle East and Africa, doing documentaries, while continuing his nose-thumbing output. Best known for The Gospel According to St. Matthew in 1964, which actually received Church support for its stripped-down depiction of the life of the prophet Jesus. Alone among his fellow leftists, he supported the police in their confrontations with students in 1969, declaring them the true proletariat, not the privileged protesters. Bought an old castle north of Rome in 1970, and continued to explore sexual politics in his subsequent works, such as Bocaccio’s The Decameron and Arabian Nights. His final film, Salo, went far beyond tastes of the times in its sado-masochistic violence, and would wind up as his most controversial work. Brutally murdered by a hustler, Pino Pelosi, who ran over him several times with his own car at a beach, although the latter would recant his confession 30 years later, claiming anti-communists had done it. May have been a contract killing, involving more than one person, or it also may have been his final staged act, as a coda to a life where art and politics fatally conjoined. Buried in the jersey of the Italian Showmen national soccer team, which he had helped found. A neorealist in all he assayed, with a wish to portray the profound sadness of modern existence, thanks to a mindless materialism that usurped the true essence of the Italian character, particularly its peasanthood and the various dialects that once made each region unique. Inner: Deliberately provocative in his challenging of conventional morals, as well as the consumerist mentality of postwar Italy. A professed atheist, he felt that the world was sacred in and of itself, and had need no for any institutions to realize its holiness. Nonconformist choirboy lifetime of celebrating the political, spiritual and cultural divine in the sacred mundane. Giosuè Carducci (Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci) (1835-1907) - Italian poet and critic. Outer: Father was a physician from an old Florentine family, and active politically in the fight to unite Italy, having been imprisoned during the revolution of 1831. Mother was quite cultured, and guided his early literary tastes. Because of political considerations, the family was forced to move quite often, while he came to rebel against his sire’s tastes, and the religious and cultural narrowness of the Catholic educational institutions he attended, creating a lifelong enmity against the Church. Wound up in Florence, and won a scholarship to the Univ. of Pisa. Short, powerfully built, with a large forehead above small, piercing eyes. In 1855, he published his first book, an anthology, showing a preference for classical Latin poets of antiquity . After graduation, he taught at a couple of institutions, before accepting the chair of Italian literature at the Univ. of Bologna in 1860, where one of his prize students was poet Giovanni Pascoli. Three years earlier his brother mysteriously committed suicide, and his father died the next annums, with both events disturbing him greatly. In 1859, he married Elvira Menicucci, and at the same time co-founded a short-lived periodical, where his critical essays led to his university appointment. Two daughters and a son who died in infancy from the union. Stressed pre-romantic Italian traditions, and renaissance humanism in his work, while he evolved politically from being a patriotic monarchist to becoming a democratic republican, with a strong anti-Catholic bias, particularly the abuse of power of the Vatican, seeing it as an enemy of Italy. His “Hymn to Satan,” published in 1865, was well-received by republicans wishing to limit papal authority in Italy, and as a mason, he was intimately involved with the the various forces fighting for the unification of the country and the limitation of the powers of the papacy. Subsequently identified as a satanist, he was far more anticlerical than pro-devil, viewing religion more in political terms than spiritual ones, with freedom of expression, celebration of nature’s wonders and humanistic enterprise as his own personal pietistic credo. Wrote in a restrained style, which ran counter to his personal and often fiery teaching persona. By the 1880s, he was a seminal figure in Italian culture, noted for his educational oratory and the depth and ardor of his teaching, although he was still the subject of criticism for some of his subject matter, which he defended most eloquently. His “Rime Nuove” and “”Odi Barbare,” both published at the end of the 1880s, are prime examples of his depth of intellect, in his reintegrating the ancient with the modern in language and rhythm. In 1890, he was made Senator of Italy, after earlier and briefly holding a seat in the Italian chamber. Despite his anticlerical stances, he saw Christianity as a temperer of humanity’s barbaric nature, and God as a high force overseeing all nations. Grew more moderate as he became older, eventually accepting monarchy as an emblem of Italian sovereignty. Suffered partial paralysis in 1899, and retired from teaching five years later because of declining health. The following year he was given a generous pension from the government to honor his long service to the country as one of its preeminent teachers and in 1906, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Italian to be so honored, although he was too ill to accept it in person. Died a few months afterwards. In addition to his poetry, he was an accomplished translator, and also wrote literary criticism, biographies and essays. Inner: Lively and nonconformist, and a self-proclaimed radical rationalist, with little use for romantic sentimentalism. Had an extremely strong affinity for the classical past, and, as a humanist, little patience for superstition and patriotic doggerel. Attenzione classe lifetime of championing the past as the clearest and most eloquent voice of the revolutionary present, in his ongoing support of intellect, reality and reason as the ultimate trinity behind the sacredness of life.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS UNIQUE TELLER OF SUBVERSIVE TALES:
Storyline: The Portuguese-spouting pundit never shies away from controversy in either subject matter or political stances, in his very human take on his/story and love amongst its many ruins.
Jose de Sousa Saramago (1922-2010) - Portuguese writer, playwright and journalist. Outer: From a landless peasant background of farmers. Got his last name from the word for a plant whose leaves provided nourishment for the poor, which was his family nickname, and was included in his birth registration for reasons only known to the registrar. His sire, a former artillery man in WW I, became a policeman in Lisbon when he was two. Younger of 2 brothers, with the elder dying soon after the move. Grew up poor, and, despite being scholastically gifted, his parents couldn’t afford an education for him, and he wound up in technical school for 5 years, working as mechanic afterwards at a car repair shop, while using a public library to refine his burgeoning literary sensibilities. Spent his vacations in a small village with his grandparents, so as to have an urban and rural sense of his native country. In 1944, he married a typist, Ilda Reis, who later became a well-known engraver. One daughter from the union, which ended in divorce in 1970. Tall, and austere with a dry manner. Published his first novel in 1947, “The Land of Sin,” then felt he had nothing more to say and abandoned his literary pursuits for the next 19 years. Worked for the Social Welfare Service, then with a metal company, before joining a publishing concern as a production manager at the end of the 1950s. Also did translations, an activity he would pursue from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, familiarizing himself with literature outside his native language. Spent two years as a literary critic, after publishing again in 1966. Joined the Communist Party in 1969, which was illegal, although remained critical of its workings, despite continuing to label himself a Marxist. Had a 15 year relationship with Isabel da Nobrega, a writer, between 1970 and 1986. Worked as a journalist, and then an assistant editor, but was fired in 1975, following a military coup. Over the next five years, he supported himself as a translator, while steadily publishing a variety of novels, before finally establishing himself as a writer of considerable note, with his breakthrough blasphemous love story “Baltasar and Blimunda,” published in 1982, when he was 60. In 1988, he married Pilar del Rio, a Spanish journalist. After having his “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ,” suffer censorship for its humane view of Catholicism’s central heartmaster, he moved to the Canary Islands in 1992, where he continued his prolific and award-winning output, ultimately winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, the first Portuguese writer to do so. Ultimately sold more than 2 million books. Co-founded the National Front for the Defense of Culture before he left, and, despite his age, remained au courant with his own blog. Accused of anti-Semitism for his very public pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli stances, he was basically anti-theocratic, with a venom towards the intertwining of all religious and political cant. His unusual stylistics, where he eschewed quotation marks around dialogue, and instead presented it in run-on form, with capitalization indicating change of speakers, coupled with his often surreal allegorical subject matter, made him a completely unique figure in 20th century world literature, with an extremely human view of world events, as well as a cynical take on the uses and abuses of power, in both the public and private sphere. Died at home of multiple organ failure Inner: Self-described atheist and pessimist. Sly-humored and savage in his view of the frailty of the human condition. Viewed globalization as the new totalitarianism, with multinational corporations as a huge fascist threat. Subversive lifetime of slowly coming to literary prominence, allowing him a full and depthful view of the world around him before committing his unique vision and sense of metaphor to paper. Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) - Brazilian novelist, playwright and poet. Outer: Of mulatto and Portuguese descent, and the grandson of freed slaves. Father was mulatto and a wall painter, mother was a washerwoman. Born in the country home of the widow of a senator, who served as his family’s protectoress. Had a sister who died young, and was sickly from childhood on, suffering from epilepsy, and always afraid he would have an attack in public. Not particularly apt at his studies, he lost his mother at 10, and after his father remarried another mulatto, he wound up receiving most of his formal education in the kitchen at the girl’s school where she worked a dishwasher. Subsequently able to attract informal teachers to him through friendships, to expand his language skills, which would influence his later style. After befriending a bookstore owner and fellow mulatto, he had his first poem published at 15 in a newspaper. The following year he became a typographer’s apprentice, and later was a salesman and a proofreader at a bookshop, while leading a very sparse existence. Short and lean, with a stammer, and a feeling of social inferiority which made him shy, although his keen intelligence always shone through, attracting him to people of influence and culture. His first writings were published in periodicals, and by the time he was 25, he was acclaimed as a talented poet. Although he loved the theater, and penned several plays, it would not be a vehicle that served his ultimate unusual vision well. Served as a member and censor of the Brazilian Dramatic Conservatory between 1862 and 1864, and by decade’s nearend he was a successful man of letters. A liberal monarchist, he was made a director-assistant in the Diario Oficial in 1867, and also a knight by the emperor. In 1869, he married Carolina de Novaeas a cultured woman from a distinguished family, who was 5 years his senior. No children from the union, which was both happy and harmonious, despite the disapproval of her family and some of his friends because of the class and racial differences between them. Began working as a clerk and then as a director of the accounting division of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1873. Had a serious bout with epilepsy in 1879, and during his long convalescence, he began to delve deep into the human psyche, while, at the same time, abandoning any romantic notions he previously had, which characterized his earlier works. Able to read widely in English, French and German while he recovered, while using his attained knowledge of world literature to broaden his own cultural roots. His first novel after this period, “Posthumous Reminiscences of Bras Cubas,” published in 1881, is narrated by someone already dead, and his subsequent work would expand considerably on his imagination, by exploring madness and a host of unconventional themes, while showing his penetrating and profound understanding of both his society-at-large and the individuals in it. Because of his debility, he rarely traveled outside his native city, and also avoided any political involvements, including discussing the abolition of slavery, which had affected his life personally. Surprised at the overthrow of the monarchy in 1889, he remained an admirer of the fallen emperor, while turning his considerable insight to the dynamics of the newly-formed republic, so that his work took on an even deeper hue afterwards. Co-founded the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1897, along with other liberal monarchists and served as its first president from 1897 to his death. Following his wife’s demise in 1904, he suffered an acute sense of loneliness, so that his last few years were deeply depressive. Ultimately penned 9 novels, a host of short-story collection, 4 volumes of poetry, 13 plays and numerous critical essays, with his works neatly cleft by his illness, which simultaneously plunged him into dark territory and elevated him to the status of Brazil’s greatest writer, although not until after his death. Curiously crude in some of his poetry, despite a deep lyrical sensibility in his other writings. Inner: Pessimistic, and extremely insightful, with an intuitive grasp of the subconscious. Traditional, ironic, skeptical and sensitive to the feminine. Extremely influential for a score of writers who followed him. Innovative lifetime of using a flawed physicality to dig deep into his own subconscious, in order to reorder the world around him according to his own highly-developed aesthetic.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS SLOW, STOLID CRAFTSMAN:
Storyline: The mordant humorist remains a prisoner of his own insecurities despite a scathing wit and the ability to augment the language with his ongoing inventiveness.
Joseph Heller (1923-1999) - American writer. Outer: Parents were Russian immigrants. Father was a truck/driver for a bakery, mother barely spoke English. The former had been an agnostic and a socialist who fled the czar, and died of a botched ulcer operation, when his son was 5. Grew up near Coney Island, worked as a Western Union delivery boy, then briefly labored as a defense worker in a Navy blacksmith shop. During WW II, he spent 3 years in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying 60 missions as a B-25 wing bombardier, rising to the rank of lieutenant. Afterwards, he went to USC and NYU on the G.I. Bill, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Received his M.A. at Columbia and spent a year at Oxford as a Fulbright scholar. Worked as an instructor in English at Penn State for 2 years, an advertising writer for Time magazine, then Look, then as a promotion manager for McCall’s. Lifelong reader, the singular great passion in his life, aside from food. In his early 20s, he married Shirley Held, an extremely supportive fellow Brooklynite, 2 children from the union, daughter Erica became a writer. Put his war experiences into Catch-22, in his late 30s, which entered the language as a self-contradictory paradoxical phrase, although the book, and its absurdist view of war took a while to catch on. Became a fulltime writer with its success, as well as holding professorships at various schools, although he wound up recycling it in later work, and never really transcended its initial brilliance. His subsequent works were produced at great intervals, as he proved to be an agonizingly slow writer. After an adult lifetime of anxiety over his health, he was stricken with a nerve disease in the early 1980s that left him paralyzed for several months, and almost too weak to breathe. Recovered and wrote about the experience in No Laughing Matter. Also divorced his wife of nearly 40 years in 1984 and 3 years later, he married his nurse, Valerie Humphries. The first volume of his memoirs were published in 1998, Now and Then. Died of a heart attack just before the millennium. Inner: Extremely mordant view of the world, unable to find extended happiness in it. Highly social recluse and gourmand, with no other hobbies but thinking. Intelligent, and aggressively scholarly. Neurotic, argumentative, hidden, with his anger masked in humor, save towards those closest to him. Inveterate worrier, slow, methodical worker. Mordant lifetime of continuing patterns of searching for security and happiness, and finding an appropriate literary metaphor for his times, while a remaining a paralyzed prisoner of his own insecurities. Ivan Goncharov (1812-1891) - Russian novelist. Outer: Born into one of the leading grain merchant families of Simbirsk. His father died when he was 7, while his godfather, a retired naval officer and liberal-minded aristocrat, served as a surrogate parent. Often visited his estate, whose beauty he would later celebrate in his works. Learned French and German, then completed his education in Moscow, in a school of commerce, before attending the university there. Showed some signs of mental instability in his teens, which would come to far fuller flower later on. Unaffected by the romantic movement, and, unlike fellow literateurs of his generation who were revolutionaries or rebels, he became a civil servant afterwards, as a translator, pursuing that career the rest of his working life. Solid, well-proportioned and handsome. Began writing early, methodically applying himself to the study of literature, and published his 1st novel in his mid-30s, which was enthusiastically received. Took a 2 year trip to Japan when he was 40, that included England and South Africa on its route, as an his/storiographer to an admiral. The trip was ultimately scuttled because of the outbreak of the Crimean War. Made his way back via northern Siberia, and later wrote about the journey. Made censor after the death of the czar, officially holding the position for a year, but unofficially helping to lessen the stringency of this office for the rest of his governmental career. Completed his masterwork Oblomov in 1859, after working on it for a decade, and the archetypal indolent noble main character of that novel became part of the language, as someone totally superfluous. Retired from government work at the earliest age possible, 55, and devoted the rest of his life to literature, continuing to explore the same themes. Felt, without any concrete grounds, that he was being plagiarized by Ivan Turgenev (Vlaldimir Nabokov), and became quite maniacal over his suspicions, feeling anyone who asked him about his work was an agent of that writer. Never married, naming his housekeeper as his sole heir. After resigning from the civil service, he lived the rest of his life in a flat in St. Petersburg, in isolation and subject to his various delusions. Although his output was limited, he had a wide-reaching influence. Inner: Outwardly calm, retiring and extremely methodical, but inwardly suffered from a competitive imbalance. Plodding lifetime of a slow, sure focus to everything he did, so that he could let his imagination loose from a secure, if not particularly inspiring, economic base, as well as a mind not quite tethered to any reality other than his own.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS ONGOING COMBO OF THE GOOD, BAD & UGLY:
Storyline: The namesake navigator turns to storytelling after his adventuring lives are over, while continuing his fascination with the country that bears his earlier appellation, in his ongoing need to rediscover and mythologize the New World through his considerable imagination.
Sergio Leone (1929-1989) - Italian filmmaker and screenwriter. Outer: Father was Vincenzo Leone, a pioneering film director who worked under the name of Roberto Roberti. Mother was silent film actress Edvige Valcarenghi, who plied her trade under the name Bice Waleran. Schoolmate for a while with Ennio Morricone, who would provide memorable scores for his films. Fascinated by the American wild west as a child, which he would later reinterpret through his unique sense of filmic vision. Destined for the law, he dropped out of school, and, instead, began penning screenplays for the his/storical action genre known as “swords and sandals.” Served his apprenticeship by working as an assistant director on several lavish international productions at Cinnecita Studios in Rome. 5’8”, and increasingly heavier as he got older. Subbed for an ailing director on The Last Days of Pompeii, which led to his debut film, The Colossus of Rhodes in 1961, giving him an expertise at sumptuous low-budget fare. In 1960, he married Carla Panelli, a ballerina, two daughters and a son from the union, with the daughters serving as extras in some of his films. Became a cult favorite in 1964, with the first of a series of what came to be known as “Spaghetti Westerns,” shot in Spain. His initial effort was A Fistful of Dollars, a remake of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, who sued him, and was given compensation from his next film. These ultra-violent and completely ambiguous oaters starred Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, and made him an international star, although he would be extremely critical of the latter’s limited range as an actor. Used a combination of gritty realism, underscored music and body counts by the dozens to fashion a trinity of films around Eastwood, including For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Continued to explore the American west in Once Upon a Time in the West, which was also mostly shot in Europe, although it was largely gutted by Paramount Pictures, which didn’t care for his stylistics of counterpointing lingering close-ups with long shots, and stretched out silence with bursts of action. While the film initially did poorly in America, it was a huge hit in Europe. Much of his later work would be less telling, as he both produced and reshot other director’s work, and continued to explore westerns, comedies, and as a change of pace, commercials for European TV. Turned down a chance to direct The Godfather to do his own take on American gangsters with Once Upon a Time in America in 1984, although, it, too, was butchered by its financing studio, Warner Bros., who once again felt his storytelling style was too leisurely for American tastes. As before, the resultant effort failed in the U.S., and succeeded in its original, and much longer version elsewhere. Although it would eventually be released as it was created, to much critical U.S. acclaim, it would prove his final effort, and he would be deeply bothered by all the interference his work received. A glutton to the point of obesity, he died of a heart attack, while in the midst of working on a film about the 900 day siege of Leningrad during WW II. Inner: Temperamental, angry, difficult and prone to feuding. Also extremely oral, with food as an obsessive element in his life. Loved the actor Henry Fonda’s work, and was thrilled to finally work with him. Insecure about many of his own efforts, often announcing each of his films would be his last, although continually kept his plate filled with projects. Used translators to work with American actors. Sequel lifetime of going to Spain to rediscover his fantasy version America, as he had once done, while finding the real America and its commercial consumption interests far less hospitable to his vision of it, much to his self-consuming displeasure. Emilio Salgari (1862-1911) - Italian novelist. Outer: From a family of modest merchants. Mother was Venetian, and his father was from Verona. Wanted to be an explorer, and enrolled at the Royal Technical and Nautical School in Venice, although never received a diploma because of poor grades, and subsequently only made one voyage on the Adriatic for three months, aboard a merchant ship. It would be enough, however, to give him a lifetime of sea stories, the first of which he published at the age of 20. After establishing himself, he began using the title Capt. Salgari in his authorship, while also embellishing his own adventures so that they matched the tales he told, despite his extremely limited travels. Took his stories from the research he did in the books available to him, and used the world and its exotic settings for backdrops, while his heroes were equally unusual, and product of a variety of cultures. Had an affinity for pirate stories, writing several series around them, and also America’s wild west, which would ultimately feed into his next go-round as well. Ultimately wrote more than 200 adventure stories and novels, with his most popular creation, Sandokan, a Bornean prince who became a pirate, fighting against the imperialists of western Europe, as did his other creations in the New World. While his moral sense extended to the outlaws of both the land and seas, they would invariably do battle with the greed and corruption of those considered the emblems of empire. In 1889, his father killed himself, giving a taint to the family that would be followed by both him and his son forty-two years later. Met Buffalo Bill Cody (Clint Eastwood), while the former’s show was in Verona, which he bragged about, and was ultimately knighted for his efforts. Always showed women as the equal of men in their macha abilities, in contrast to the way other adventure writers of his era portrayed them, and rewrote Romeo and Juliet several times. Married actress Ida Peruzzi in 1892, and was devoted to her. Four children from the close union. His wife began showing signs of dementia in 1903, and the cost of treatment for her forced him to turn to hack work, translating, writing under assumed names, and living in such dire poverty, he couldn’t even afford a new fountain pen, and had to use one that was held together by string. As his wife grew sicker, his imagination began to fail and he felt he was losing his ability to write. Made a suicide attempt in 1910, although was nursed back to health. In 1911, his wife was confined to an institution, and he was completely at sea without her. Six days after she was institutionalized, he said goodbye to his children, went to a nearby park, and committed seppuku, slitting his stomach open in the traditional manner of the Japanese samurai. His fast-paced, violent and well-humored tales would be such, that others would later add to his canon, writing under his name. The most popular writer of Italian fiction ever, and a schoolboy favorite for generations throughout western Europe. His works would eventually find their way into comic form, animated films and features, with some 50 movies developed out of his oeuvre. Many of Europe’s and Latin America’s prime literary figures would single him out as an early influence, having cut their creative teeth on his penned adventures, despite their failure to find favor with the critics of the time, because of their unpolished style. Inner: Despite his huge successes, much of his adult life was lived hand-to-mouth. Sensitive to the feminine, and highly resentful that others profited greatly off his works, while he did not. Pulp fiction lifetime of expanding his inner sense of adventure through his imagination, in a curious repeat of his earlier discovery go-round in this series, while ultimately becoming undone through his failure to integrate the independent feminine into his life, despite a strong sense of simpatico in that arena. Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) - Italian/Spanish explorer and merchant. Outer: Father was a notary. One brother. Educated by an uncle, who was a scholarly Dominican, and a close friend of firebrand Girolamo Savonarola (Martin Heidigger), showing a strong interest in philosophy and geography. Raised in the Republic of Florence, he served the ruling house of de’ Medici there as a clerk, before being sent to one of its banking agencies in Seville, Spain, in 1491 where he dealt in traded goods. Commissioned to complete a contract by the outfitter of Christopher Columbus, he made his first sailing to the New World in 1497 in a four ship fleet with the desire to find a route to Asia, before returning home the following year. Maintained that he reached the mainland of the Americas 8 days prior to John Cabot (Stansfield Turner), although all his claims would ultimately be highly questionable. In 1499, he joined what would be the second of his four voyages of discovery in a three ship flotilla, exploring the eastern coast of South America and the West Indies, before returning to Spain in 1500. Entered the service of the Portuguese king, and the following year he claimed to have made it down to the nearend of the South American continent, although his assertions would differ in two tellings of his adventures, so that his quartet of voyages remain obscured, with only his word as testament to them. His fourth and final voyage would be a further exploration of South America, with a fleet of 6 ships. Married Maria Cereza in 1505, and became a naturalized Spanish citizen the same year. No children from the union. Visited explorer Christopher Columbus (Fulgencio Batista), who entrusted him with a letter for his son, while a pamphlet published in 1507 credited him with far more discoveries than he ever made, and set up the erroneous notion that it was he who had unearthed the New World for Europe’s subsequent exploitation and subduement. In 1508, he was appointed chief pilot of Spain, holding that position until his death four years later. His letters and claims would lead to a feminized version of his first name finding itself appended to the two continents of the western hemisphere, through the beneficence of cartographer Martin Waldseemuller, who erroneously believed he was the discoverer of America, granting him an immortality far beyond any accomplishment he might have achieved. His legacy would be a testament to an unusual imagination that would continue to entertain the larger world for centuries to come. HIs very letters, upon which his reputation rests, may have been total fabrications, as well, written by others, so that his life and accomplishments would wind up the product of the projections of others, rather than his own achievements. Inner: Skillful cartographer, and equally adept at self-embellishment. May have made only two voyages, while his exact contributions to them remain a matter of conjecture. Name-dropping lifetime of allowing fate to take his cognomen and make it the primary appellation of the New World, which he would visit again and again in his unusual imagination in succeeding go-rounds, in his ongoing desire to discover his complex and self-destructive self through his creative efforts.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS MAGICAL IDEALIST AND POLITICAL NAIF:
Storyline: The self-celebrating bard goes for mass appeal and sacrifices both his talent and ultimately his name in his desires for mass approbation to reflect his great love of self.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933) - Russian poet. Outer: From peasant stock, mother was a geologist and singer, who entertained the troops during WW II and father was a geologist. His parents divorced, and he spent his early years in Moscow with his mother and sister. At 15, he had his first poem published, and at the same time accompanied his progenitor on the first of several geological expeditions. Educated at the Gorki Institute of Literature, during which time he brought out his first volume of poems. 6’3”, and slender. Influenced by poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (Notorious B.I.G.), but without his strength and convictions. Pro-Stalinist until the dictator’s death in 1953, then began writing love poetry. Married Bella Akhmadulina, a poet, in 1954 and later divorced. Became a public figure after a self-celebrating autobiographical poem tracing his own fascination with himself. Married Galina Semyonova, a literary translator in 1962, later divorced, one child from the union. Achieved enormous popularity during the Khruschev era as a spokesman of young Russia, thanks to his simplified verse geared towards touching as large an audience as possible, while his subsequent denouncements of Stalinism made him a world figure. His political poetry was largely rhetorical, making him far more effective as a lyric poet. Best known for "Babi Yar," a reaction to anti-Semitism that he tossed off in 2 hours. Employed simplified language in a deliberate pandering to mass tastes. Often traveled abroad as a performing poet, personifying the creative Russian spirit. The publication in Paris of his autobiography in 1963, however, caused official censure, and his privileges were revoked, although were reinstated two years later. Criticized Russia’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and also its exile of writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, while his speeches were continually censored. Married a 3rd time in 1978, to Jan Bulter, an English translator, later divorced, 2 children from the union. His 4th marriage in 1986 was to Maria Novika, a physician, which also produced 2 children. His later career saw him abandon poetry in favor of prose, and enjoy success in a variety of mediums, including plays, novels and film. During the era of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost, he was heavily criticized for being a useful tool of the state in showing that its citizens could verbally oppose its policies, without effecting them in any way. Inner: Middlebrow poet, ardent communist, although never joined the party. His great ambition was to become the poetic spokesman for his generation, with the widest, most undiscriminating audience possible. Corrupted lifetime of actively pursuing fame, at the expense of both integrity and talent. Alexander Blok (1880-1921) - Russian poet. Outer: From an aristocratic family of both Russian and German descent. Mother was a translator, and a possessive and highly cultivated woman, as well as the daughter of the rector of the Univ. of St. Petersburg. Father was a sardonic scholar and professor of law. His parents divorced soon after his birth, and he went to live with his mother, who gave him a cultural and idyllic childhood at her father’s country estate, which he would inherit when he was in his early 20s. Always searching for the ideal feminine, he began writing magical love poetry as a way of attaining it. Studied law at the Univ. of St. Petersburg, without evidencing a feel for it, and finally got his degree in philology. In his mid-20s, he married his muse, Lyubov Mendeleeva, the daughter of chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev, and idealized her as the incarnation of Divine Wisdom. Because of the irreal sense to it, the marriage was a disaster, and was made even worse by writer Andre Biely’s (Woody Allen), obsession with his unamused muse, bringing the two to near mortal blows via duels several times. With the ability to make his language magical, he became one of the most important Russian Symbolists, although his disillusionment with his wife turned his earlier exalted verse into pessimistic irony. His later efforts became much harder-edged as a result, with his father’s mocking sensibilities showing through. Wished for a purging storm, following the reactionary period after the 1905 revolution, and wrote a trilogy of plays satirizing his own early mysticism, while replacing the Divine Feminine with a love of idealized country. Wrote criticism and essays and fell into poverty and heavy drinking, as he grew more and more disillusioned with his existence. Traveled to Italy and France, which inspired some of his best writing, while he continued to contrast an idealized Russia with its dead soul actualities. Joined the army in 1916, serving behind the front lines in a civil defense position, then accepted the 1917 revolution, seeing it as a manifestation of the spirit of music. Afterwards, he worked for the provisional government as an interrogator of czarist ministers. His most famous poem was "Dvenadstat," in which he envisioned a dozen Red Army soldiers marching behind Jesus Christ at their head, through the icy streets of Petrograd. Became the spent prophet of the revolution, with nothing more to say afterwards, having become disenchanted with the succeeding political dynamic, as they were with him, seeing him far too independent and vague for their tastes. Held a series of minor cultural posts and faded out with his ensuing silence, dying of heart failure brought on by malnutrition. Inner: Mystical and idealistic, with a preference for an elite cultured readership. Haunted by the sounds of events, as well as the dis-ease of the world. Gullible and confused politically, but with a powerful sense of aesthetics. Naive lifetime of being a voice for events he could not fully comprehend, before being ultimately quieted by them. Nikolai Nekrasov (1821-1878) - Russian poet, publisher and editor. Outer: Mother was dreamy and meek, father was a squire and retired army officer who brutalized his wife and spent his time debauching with his mistresses and drinking. Very close with the former, who introduced him to poetry, which he began writing at the age of seven. Received a spotty early education before being sent by his sire to a military academy in St. Petersburg. Decided to go to the university there instead, and was disowned, causing him to live in extreme poverty for years, while doing hack work to survive. Had a strong-willed practical nature, with an unrefined look about him, replete with penetrating eyes. Published his first book of verse, “Dreams and Sounds,” in 1840, which was savaged by critic Vissarion Belinsky (Leon Trotsky) as a compendium of romantic clichés, causing him to buy back all the copies and destroy them. Later became friends with Belinsky, who served as his mentor, and urged him to put his verse to use in promoting social justice, while using his own life experience for subject matter. Became a publisher and editor, discovering numerous future luminaries, including Ivan Goncharov (Joseph Heller), Fyodor Doestoevsky (Alexander Solzhenitsyn) and Leo Tolstoy (John Gardner). In 1846, he bought “The Contemporary,” which featured many of Russia’s finest writers, although a decade later, it became the repository for leftist literary rants, and many of its more moderate contributors abandoned it. Continued as the most popular poet of his times with his subsequent collections, while Russia’s social radicals committed much of his verse to heart, and used his metaphors for slogans. Worked closely with Avdotya Panaeva, the wife of the co-owner of the review he edited, and his mistress for sixteen years. Some saw him as an unscrupulous exploiter, and, much like his father, a gambler, drinker and womanizer, while others saw him as a deeply, wounded soul Bought a second review, “The Fatherland Notes,” and edited it, before spending the last two years of his life in in great pain, suffering from cancer, and eventually succumbing to the disease. An uneven writer, with the ability to express sorrow and pain, as well as the ordinary in day-to-day language, heretofore not used in Russian poetics. Inner: Sensitive and a hypochondriac, with a need to rationalize his dark ways, using his poetry to express democratic ideals, which were otherwise not evident in his life. Saw his work as “joyless and uncouth,” despite the genuine compassion he expressed for peasant life. Tortured lifetime of being a folksong writer at heart, while carrying the shadow of his unloving father, and using his expressive gifts to try to free himself of him.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS SKEWERER OF ASKEW AUTHORITY:
Storyline: The oft-censored satirist does continual battle with his longtime vampire state, until he is finally given the freedom to allow his scathing vision its full surreal due, without defanging interference from above.
Viktor Pelevin (1962) - Russian writer. Outer: Father was a military officer, although not a Party member. Mother was an economist, and the family enjoyed nomenklatura, or preferred, status, without being part of the Communist apparatchik apparatus. At the age of 14, he read “The Master and Margarita,” his previous life’s grand opus, in his school library and it inspired him to become a writer, as well as a freethinker. In order to avoid military service, he went to the Moscow Institute of Power Engineering, where he worked on a secret project protecting MIG fighters from flying insects. Having satisfied his mandatory military requirements, he then studied at Moscow’s Gorky Institute of Literature. Worked in a design office afterwards, and then as an editor of “Science and Religion” magazine, where he familiarized himself with eastern mystical practices. Became fascinated with the shamanistic works of Carlos Castaneda, which were circulating around underground Moscow in the 1980s, while also becoming a full time writer. His first collection, “The Blue Lantern,” won the Little Booker Prize for Short Stories in 1993, and his follow up first novel, “Omon Ra,” established him as postmodern sci-fier of far more than passing interest. In his subsequent oeuvre, he has continued to explore the nature of reality and identity via the tensions between direct experience and the distancing state of observing it. Had his 1996 novel “Buddha’s Little Finger,” removed from competition, since it was deemed “a potential virus that could destroy the country’s cultural memory,” in a throwback to the censorship imposed on him from lives past in this series. Reached best seller status in 1999, with “Generation “P””, a satire on contemporary Russia and its convoluted values. Has continued to delve into hyperrealities, in his subsequent works, including the notion that we live in a vampire age. Is viewed by his contemporaries as the most influential pop thinker in postmodern Russia, and has allowed all his works written before 2006 to be accessed for free on the internet. Inner: Extremely cerebral, as well as private, keeping himself quite hidden from public view. Self-styled left of right centrists and tantric agnostic. Never directly addresses his readers, preferring they bring their own overviews to his writing, rather than having them shaped by him. Avoids other writers, and uses Buddhism as a means of emptying his mind of clutter. Liberated lifetime of finally being given the freedom to explore the full extent of his rollicking mind, allowing him to take it as far and as wide as both sanity and insanity permits. Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) - Russian novelist and playwright. Outer: Both grandparents had been part of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church. Father was a respected assistant professor at the Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy. One of seven children, and the oldest of a trinity of brothers. Mother had been a teacher as well. Grew up in a loving environment, and had a fascination with the theater from an early age, penning comedies for family entertainment. At 10, he went to the First Kiev Gymnasium, where he was introduced to the writings of his previous go-round in this series. Following the death of his sire in 1907, his mother made sure he completed his education, which he did at St. Vladimir Univ., allowing him to eventually graduate with a medical degree from Kiev Univ. Married Tatiana Lappa in 1913 in a childless union. Served with the Red Cross at the eastern front during WW I, where he was wounded in the abdomen, which would effect his health the rest of his life, putting him in chronic pain, for which he used morphine. Became an addict, although was able to break himself of the habit by year’s end, and later wrote about it. After serving as a surgeon and then a provincial physician, he opened a private practice in Kiev in 1918, only to be mobilized into the subsequent civil war, and barely survived typhus in the northern Caucasus. Wanted to emigrate to Paris with the rest of his family, but was refused permission because of his ill health. Became a journalist, which led to playwriting and a move to Moscow. Wrote short pieces for a variety of newspapers, as well as satiric short stories with a sci-fi edge to them, before turning to the stage, only to see his works either refused production or banned outright, for their failure to glorify the new Soviet state. In 1925, he divorced and married Liubov Belozerskaia. Won the support of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, who was deeply impressed by his “Days of the Turbins,” seeing it repeatedly, and getting him work at the Moscow Art Theatre as a director. Despite receiving public praise for his subsequent comedies, the state critics gave them a resounding thumb’s down because of their ambivalence, and by the end of the 1920s, he found himself a permanent victim of state censorship. Began working on his best-remembered work, the diabolical “The Master and Margarita,” in 1928, knowing full well it would never see print while he lived, so that he poured his entire essence into it. Wrote a letter to Stalin, asking to emigrate, and received a personal phone call in response, in which he recanted his request and was allowed to rejoin the Art Theater as an assistant stage director. In 1932, after divorcing, he wed Yelena Shilovskiya, in an extremely close union, with their relationship serving as inspiration for the surreal connection between the two titular characters in his novel. In 1932, after divorcing, he wed Yelena Shilovskiya, in an extremely close union, with their relationship serving as inspiration for the surreal connection between the two titular characters in his novel. Yelena had been happily married to an army officer, and had two children when they met, in what would be an obsessive relationship on both their parts, following her divorce, and their wedding the following day. She would type all his manuscripts, and continue to champion him after his death. Continued his writing in a variety of genres, as well as doing translations, while his satires on the Soviet system stayed in his desk, since they could have meant exile and death for him. Deeply depressed over not being able to see his birth family, in addition to the closed fist of the censorial state, he still retained Stalin’s good graces, which saved him from arrest, but punished the artist within. Joined the Bolshoi Theater in the late 1930s as a librettist and consultant, only to see the ban on his efforts continue. Even when he wrote a complimentary play on Stalin’s early revolutionary days, he saw it banned before it reached the rehearsal state. Asked to emigrate once again, but was refused. His single source of hope was his novel, into which he poured his creative soul, finally finishing it in 1939. Died the following year from an inherited kidney disorder, which had also taken the life of his father. Began to be rehabilitated in 1962, and “The Master and Margarita” would finally be published by his widow in 1966, at which time, it would be hailed as a masterpiece in its incisive indictment of Soviet Russia, although some of his short stories, including “Heart of a Dog,” would be far more imaginative and consistent in their pursuit of similar themes. Inner: Dualistic, with equal draws towards the courageous and the self-sacrificial, along with an obdurate unwillingness to bend to the larger forces continually castrating his creativity. Censured lifetime of falling victim to an insensate state unable to countenance his unerring view of his dead soul society. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin (Mikhail Saltykov) (1826-1889) - Russian satirist. Outer: Parents were members of an ancient landholding nobility. Educated sporadically during a melancholy childhood, before entering the Moscow Institute for Nobles at the age of 10. After transferring to the Tsarskoye-Selo Lyceum, his passion for literature emerged, through both reading and versifying, although the latter practice was not encouraged by the authorities. Nevertheless, his talents were recognized, in keeping with the school’s foremost graduate, Alexander Pushkin (Tupac Shakur), and he began publishing his poems in literary magazines while still a teen. Later rejected his verse, never writing in that form again, since he did not like the idea of being viewed as a poet. After graduating in 1844, he entered the civil service in St. Petersburg, and, while toiling as a clerk in the Office of the Military Ministry, began associating with progressive malcontents seeking a more just society. Started penning short stories, with his second, “An Intricate Affair,” coinciding with the 1848 revolutions in France. Ran afoul of the czarist authorities for his pro-serf sensibilities, and was sent off to Vyatka, well northeast of Moscow, where he was allowed to continue his civil service career, but in exile. His conscientious work ethic brought him promotions, and he ultimately became an adviser to the police administration of the province. In 1856, the year his exile was terminated, he married the 17 year old daughter of the vice-governor, and returned to St. Petersburg, taking a position with the Ministry of the Interior, where he worked on peasant reform. Used his eight years of exile as fodder for satirical sketches of provincial officials, writing under the name of Shchedrin, which eventually became linked with his own. Able to use his position and pseudonym to directly observe bureaucratic life, and reveal governmental malpractices. Became vice-governor of a wealthy province southeast of Moscow, as his fame as a satirist grew. Quit his position and joined the magazine that had published most of his sketches, “The Contemporary,” in 1863, only to return to government service the following year, because of both censorship, and the poor rewards of a pure literary life. In 1868, he was invited to share the editorship of a second magazine, “Notes of the Fatherland,” which promised better remuneration, and he resigned again. Visited Paris in the mid-1870s, and published his only novel, “The Golovyov Family,” in 1876, which lacked the bite of his shorter pieces. When his coeditor, the poet Nikolai Nekrasov (Yevgeny Yevtushenko) died in 1878, he became the magazine’s sole director, only to see its owners terminate publication in 1884, when it was banned by the government. Crushed by this loss of a direct linkage with his readers, he was able to join another journal the same year, and remained with it the rest of his life. Just before his death, he began a new work, wishing to remind people of the lost language of humanism in contemporary tsarist society, including “conscience, fatherland and humanity.” Wrote entirely in a satirical vein and chose as his subject matter social abuses, which he would limn in an offhand manner, often in fable form, so as to lessen the possibility of censorship. Published these tales in “Fables,” in 1885. Inner: Harsh critic of tsarist Russia, with his life dedicated to exposing its autocratic abuses, and feudal backwardness, without putting his own precarious existence at stake. Mordant lifetime of carefully sidestepping authorities in order to give life to his writings, as a social critic of the first order, forced by a second-rate culture to be far more circumscribed than he would have liked.
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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS HER COUNTRY’S CONSCIENCE:
Storyline: The former doomed diarist returns to fulfill her potential, using her considerable skills to remind her nation of its infamous past, while subsuming and burying her own personality to serve a far greater need to redress former horrors perpetrated on her as a world-famous archetypal victim.
Elfriede Jelinek (1946) - Austrian novelist and playwright. Outer: Mother was a personnel director from a prosperous Viennese family, and of mixed Romanian and German Catholic heritage. Father was a chemist of Jewish-Czech descent. Lost several family members to the Shoa during WW II, although her sire managed to survive because his work was important to the Nazi industrial war effort. Eventually, however, he died in a mental hospital in 1969. An only child, she went to a Roman Catholic convent school in Vienna, finding it extremely confining, while her mother, with whom she had a tense relationship, wished her to pursue a musical career, and she was given instrumental lessons towards that end. Had a lonely childhood, and while at the Vienna Conservatory, where she studied composition, she suffered an emotional breakdown at the age of 17, just before exams. During her recovery period, she turned to writing as a balm, and found her pen far more conducive to self-expression than her music ever did. Also attended the Univ. of Vienna, where she studied art his/story and drama, although did not graduate. Active in politics as a student, she later joined the Communist Party for 17 years, and her views of the use and cruel misuse of power would become a strong element in her works, winning her the strident enmity of Austria’s very vocal right-wing. Her first published work was a book of poetry, “Lisa’s Shadow,” in 1967. Her novels would follow, after traveling in Berlin and Rome, beginning with “We’re Decoys, Baby,” in 1970, which showed her originality in intermixing pop culture figures with her characters. Viscerally-visioned, she would counterpoint a flat writing style with the horrifics of her demented creations, in her desire to depict the grotesqueries that lie beneath conventional Austria’s view of itself. Although largely unknown outside the German speaking world, her works would strike an incendiary chord within them surrounding their fascist past and blind-eyed present, including “Wonderful, Wonderful Times,” about a pair of thrill-seeking teenage twins and their dense compatriots as a metaphor for past and present Austria. In 1974, she married Gottfried Hungsberg, an information-systems engineer, no children from the union. Has written extensively for the stage, with her works primarily performed in German-speaking countries, where they receive more than their share of “boos,” for their unremitting focus on opening wounds of the past and her blunt and often obscene depictions of her culture and society. In 1998, the plays were briefly banned because of their subject matter. After Jorg Haider’s Freedom Party won elections in 2000, she refused to allow them to be performed in Austria while he remained in office. His assessment of her work as “degenerate,” was a direct throwback to Nazi denunciations of all art which did not fit their turgid standards. Her larger body of work would focus on relationships, and the often distasteful dynamics behind them, using the personal to limn the social and the political. Best known outside Austria for “The Piano Teacher” which was made into a film, and was also her first work to appear in English, in 1988. Also wrote the libretto for an opera based on filmmaker David Lynch’s Lost Highway. In addition to numerous awards in her homeland, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004, although did not attend the ceremony claiming “extreme social phobia.” Per usual in reaction to her, one of the male awardees stalked out in protest over the selection, claiming her oeuvre to be pornographic and little more. Inner: Chillingly frank, fiercely political and extremely private. Feels everyone is a cauldron of inner turmoil, and is acutely interested in gender politics on the personal, and the huge imbalances that exist in the larger world on the political. Last name means “little deer” in Czech. Resurrected lifetime of bringing her sensibilities to full maturity in order to address an outer world still not yet recovered from the atrocities that did her in the last time around in this series, as she fearlessly forces her larger society to view them anew through her acute artistic lens. Anne Frank (1929-1945) - German diarist. Outer: Father was a German-Jewish businessman. After a comfortable upbringing in Frankfurt, her progenitor took his wife and 2 daughters to live in Amsterdam when the Nazis came to power. Originally wanted to be a writer. Went into hiding for 2 years with the family and 4 others in a back room office of a spice warehouse for her father’s food-products business to avoid going to forced labor camp. Her father sent letters to the U.S. begging for money for visas, although his pleas were totally ignored. Supported by sympathetic friends who smuggled them food and supplies for 2 years, until they were raided by the Gestapo, who had been told by informers of their whereabouts. Sent to separate concentration camps, where she died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen. Only her father survived the war. Kept a remarkable diary during her underground existence, which she received on her 13th birthday, when she was still attending school. The diary became an intimate friend to her, to whom she could confide all her wishes and desires. Rewrote it, when she realized it might be a read record of the war. Its remarkably precocious insights were saved by friends after the family’s departure and given to the father after the war, who had it published, and it went on to have a life of its own, being translated into more than 30 languages. Despite all her travail, it revealed someone of optimistic heart who believed in the innate goodness of people. Later excerpts, which were not originally published, showed family strains and an unloving marriage. Also wrote fairy tales, short stories and essays. Inner: Extremely self-aware, with a great need to record herself. Fantasized about being a Hollywood star. Underground lifetime of exploring adolescence through recorded conversations with herself in the intense isolation of political imprisonment. Maria Bashkirtseff (Maria Konstantinova Bashkirtseva) (1860-1884) - Ukrainian/French artist and writer. Outer: Daughter of wealthy Russian nobility, with her parents separating when she was 7. Spent her childhood with her mother in a house in southern France, passing her winters in Italy and summers in Germany, until they finally settled in Paris, where the latter bought her an apartment. Received an excellent education from private teachers, and became fluent in four languages, including ancient Greek. At first she pursued a singing career, but after her voice failed, she turned to art. Studied painting at the Academie Julien and exhibited at the 1880 salon, at which time she contracted tuberculosis. Her best known work was a study of Paris slum children called “The Meeting.” Spurned several titled suitors who may have been more interested in her money than her, and spent the rest of her brief life focused on her art, which consisted mainly of portraiture, including several studies of herself. Considered herself a feminist and penned several articles for a newspaper espousing that view under the name Pauline Orrel. Corresponded with both Guy de Maupassant (Roman Polanski) and Alexandre Dumas, fils (Tennessee Williams) while keeping her relationships with the opposite gender platonic. Her health, which had always been fragile, began to worsen, and she became deaf, before succumbing to tuberculosis just before her 24th birthday. Kept a diary from the time she was 12, which was published posthumously in France, showing her to be extremely sensitive to her isolation and frailties. The diary served as her inner voice, recording her evolution as an artist and maturing adolescent, with an excellent sense of insight about herself. In unhappy irony, most of her artworks were destroyed by the Nazis during WW II. Inner: Extremely self-aware, with a great need to record herself, as if her dialogues with herself were her most profound intimacy. Candle in the wind lifetime of exploring adolescence and early womanhood through portraiture and recorded conversations with herself, a seemingly repetitive theme of hers.

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PATHWAY OF THE PLAYWRIGHT AS SATIRICAL REALIST:
Storyline: The sharp-eyed social commentator struts his telling stuff on two continents, showing a remarkable adaptability and the ability to make incisive statements in whatever cultural milieu he chooses to illuminate.
Milos Forman (Jan Tomas Forman) (1932) - Czech/American filmmaker. Outer: Father was a Jewish professor of education. Mother was a Protestant. Raised by relatives after both parents died in Nazi concentration camps. 5’11 1/2”, 185 lbs. Graduated Prague’s Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and began writing screenplays in the mid-1950s, while participating in the Laterna Magika mixed-media shows. Married popular Czech actress Jana Brejchova in 1951, divorced 5 years later. Began his directorial career in his early 30s, coming to international attention with Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen’s Ball, two telling looks at Czech society. Allowed his actors the freedom of improvisation, while turning his satiric and ironic eye to the foibles of ordinary people, with the difference between the generations as his focus. Married another Czech actress, Vera Kresadlova, in 1964, later divorced, twin sons from union, Matej and Petr, both became actors. Was in Paris when his homeland was invaded in 1968 by Russia, and remained there and then emigrated the following year to the United States, where he embarked on a highly successful career as an expatriate director. His best known film is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a study in imbalanced rebellion, which won a score of Academy Rewards, including best director in 1975. Won a second Academy Reward for Amadeus, in 1984, which garnered 8 Oscars all told. Became an American citizen in 1975, and that year was appointed a full professor and co-director of the film division of Columbia Univ. Married a third time in 1999 to a Czech singer, Martina Zborilova, twin sons from union. Despite his alien eye, he has continued to direct works around the oddities of American culture, bringing a sure-handed technique and a sympathy to many of his unlikely subjects in a prolific career of unabated social and psychological commentary. Inner: Good-humored, sharp-eyed, with the ability to give a penetrating look at a variety of cultures in a variety of time periods. Émigré lifetime of transcending cultures in order to bring his ironic and satiric vision to a world-wide audience. Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) - Russian playwright. Outer: Son of a lawyer who did business with Moscow tradesman. Developed a love for the theater during his youth. Studied law at the Univ. of Moscow but left after 3 years without a degree to take a governmental post at the Courts of Equity and Commerce in 1843. Two years later, he switched to the Court of Commerce, where he labored for the next 6 years, before being dismissed. Used his work experience to limn the merchant classes and the law courts in his particular brand of satirical realism. Read his initial plays in literary salons, and by 1850, had established a reputation for himself, although the nature of his work won him the enmity of government censors and the Moscow merchants, whom he so devastatingly depicted. His first play, “A Family Affair,” aroused so much controversy, it wasn’t presented in its original form until 1881, after earlier causing his dismissal. Able to quit his job in his late 20s and devote his full attention to writing, eventually producing over 50 plays in his next four decades, in his almost exclusive focus on the theater. Most were written in blank verse. Also authored naturalistic prose, and did some translating from the canon of European classical literature. Married, several children from union. Despite his initial successes, he was unable to realize much financial reward for them, affecting both his health and outlook. Became one of the editors of a monthly magazine identified with the Slavophile movement. His later career gave him the material security earlier denied him, but his constitution remained weak from overwork. Ultimately was appointed artistic director of the Moscow Theatrical School in 1885, as well as the Repertory for the Moscow Theater, although the stress of the positions, coupled with his failing health, finally led to his death a year later. Much of his work focused on the conflicts between patriarchal fathers and the children who challenge them, and are often crushed in their attempts at changing things. Used types rather than well-developed characters, exploring manners, rather than deep psychological conflicts. Inner: Natural satirist, with a sharp eye for human foibles. Far more interested in psychological processes than great social issues. Great master of the Russian vernacular, much more a national writer than a universal one. Nose-thumbing lifetime of turning his observations and experience into entertaining and edifying exposition, as a bridge between the generations, while internalizing his own difficulties in making his insights commercially viable in an intransigent society which did not like its weaknesses tweaked.

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PATHWAY OF THE POET AS SCI-FI SATIRIST:
Storyline: The dystopian expositor savages contemporary Russian society through both its reimagined past and future, while obscenely milling the profound gall he feels over the continued decline of both civilization and the Soviet state.
Vladimir Sorokin (1955) - Russian writer and artist. Outer: Father was a professor of metallurgy. Stuttered as a child, although art proved a breakthrough for him, allowing him to reclaim his verbal powers of expression. Despite having little interest in it, he attended the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas in Moscow, graduating in 1977 as an engineer, although never pursued the field as a career. Five years beforehand, he published his first piece in an oil industry journal. Worked for a year for the magazine, “Change,” before being forced to leave when he refused to become a member of Komsomol, a Communist youth organization. Participated in a number of art exhibitions during the 1970s, and also illustrated a host of books, while also teaching Russian literature and language in Japan. In 1977, he married a music teacher named Irina, two children from the union. Honed his literary talents as a member of Moscow’s avant-garde underground scene during the 1980s, publishing in samizdat hand-printed journals. Found an enthusiastic audience in France, for both his short stories and his first novel, “The Queue,” since his works were banned in Russia until the fall of the Soviet regime. Finally achieved recognition there, when a Latvian magazine published some of his stories in the fall of 1989. Identified with the Conceptualist school, where concepts reign, rather than aesthetics, with a parodist gift for limning the absurd, and a wide-ranging knowledge of Russian literature, allowing him to use folk tales and legends, while deconstructing Russian and Soviet classics, eliciting protests by young Putiniks against his nothing-is-sacred sensibilities in “Blue Lard,” in which he imagined former dictators Stalin and Khruschev having at one another sexually. Eventually renounced Conceptualism, seeing civilization in a downward spiral, brought on by the dehumanization of technology. Continues to explore the possibilities of both dystopia, and a return to a more primal state in his caustic works. Has also written both screenplays and scripts for the German cinema. Won the prestigious Andrey Bely (Woody Allen) Prize in 2001. His protagonists usually suffer horribly, and his works very rarely end optimistically, despite often beginning innocuously before violently veering off into the most morbid corners of the human psyche, including cannibalism. As a direct reflector of the Russian imagination, he first touched on forbidden areas, then when they became part of contemporary life following the fall of the Soviet Union, he ultimately had to turn to mythology in order to reexamine the world around him through the past and projected future, so that all of time resonates in the odd reflections he creates of Russia. Has enjoyed an international audience, with his works translated into 22 languages. Inner: Strongly anti-totalitarian, seeing Russia slipping backwards to that dreaded state. Continually fighting charges that his work is pornographic, because of his natural proclivity to reduce that which he despises to the obscene. Dreamguide lifetime of taking full advantage of the freedom of expression of his time to explore Russia’s darkest social and cultural edges. Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937) - Russian writer. Outer: Mother was well-educated, and played the piano, while also passing down her love of literature to her son, who later proclaimed his best friends in childhood were books. Father was a Russian Orthodox priest as well as a schoolmaster. Saw letters in terms of colors, and properties, and pawned the gold medal he won at his high school. Studied naval engineering at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute during the first decade of the century, and joined the Bolsheviks in the early stages of the Russian Revolution, while traveling and working in factories and on ships during his summers. Arrested in 1905 and exiled, although snuck back into St. Petersburg, illegally finishing his studies in 1908. Began lecturing and publishing both fiction and technical articles, with his first story story, based on his prison experience. Arrested and exiled again in 1911, before a general amnesty was issued in 1913, on the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Romanov dynasty. The same year a satire he wrote about small town life won him renown, although the following year he was tried for a story he penned that denigrated the military with its depiction of unsavory practices at an army garrison. Worked both in Russia and Europe, including England, where he supervised construction of ice breakers in 1916. His sojourn there produced two satires on English life, while he became known as “the Englishman,” because of his exaggerated formal behavior, as well as his liking for tweed suits. Became a journal editor following the Russian Revolution, while penning articles under the name M. Platonov for socialist newspapers, while lecturing on writing and translating popular English and American writers into Russian. More arrests followed in 1919 and 1922, as he continually protested the censorship of cultural authority. Although he remained a supporter in principle of the revolution, he detested its fear of nonparty line expositions, and his criticisms of the Communist Party did not sit well with its humorless leaders. After trying to smuggle out his best-known novel “We” to an émigré journal in Prague, his works were no longer published in the Soviet Union. “We” was a political satire on a future dystopian police state of the 26th century, where everyone is a number, rather than a name, and all life and thought are absurdly controlled, which was viewed as a maliciously slanderous work on socialism. By the end of the 1920s, his works were banned and he was forced to give up his leadership of the All-Russian Writer’s Union. Appealed by letter to dictator Joseph Stalin to leave the country in 1931, and was granted exile through the intercession of writer Maxim Gorki. Settled with his wife in Paris, and collaborated with French film director Jean Renoir on Gorki’s “The Lower Depths,” writing the screenplay. Never fully adjusted to French life, and died in poverty of a heart attack. Wasn’t rehabilitated until 1988. Inner: Saw himself as a neorealist, in his microscopic overview of Russian life. Also felt humor was an all-important element of perspective. Worked out of central metaphorical images, building on them, with a fondness for mathematical or geometric interplays. Well-organized thinker, with the belief that it is the heretics who are the true prophets of society. Heretic lifetime of pushing the narrow boundaries of critical art in a police state, and ultimately suffering mightily for his purity of vision.

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