The Dead Writers Club was born out of the fact that there are very few living writers out there that are worth reading. (Naturally, this is because we all yearn to live in the past)

Do you consistently feel as though you are living in the wrong time period? We do too.

This blog is a celebration of literature and the greats who wrote before us.
~ Wednesday, September 29 ~
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Happy Deathday Mr. Auden!

On September 29th in 1973, Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.H. Auden died of heart failure at the age of 66.

      

Our favorite work by Auden is undoubtedly his most popular, The Age of Anxiety, for which he won the Pulitzer in 1948. What truly makes this six part poem so stirring is the actual anxiety it provokes when reading it! Read it… you’ll see what we mean.

In addition, we can pull a few other favorites from his plethora of poems. The following collections are constantly referenced by all of us here at Dead Writers Club on a nearly daily basis! The Dog Beneath the Skin, Look, Stranger!, The Sea and the Mirror, Thank You, Fog and The Dance of Death.

Auden was clearly influenced by Blake, Yeats and Dickinson. His work stands out to us as some of the most evocative poetry of our time. He had a gift for writing poetry in virtually every verse form and often alluded to Classic Literature as well as popular culture.

During his lifetime, Auden wrote approximately four hundred poems and was the author of more than four hundred essays and reviews in many subject areas… If that is not awe-inspiring, we do not know what is! Our humble request of our readers today is simple… start writing… stop reading this blog and go write!

Write on in peace, Mr. Auden!

Tags: W.H. Auden dead poet dead writers club september 29 1973 heart failure English poetry gay The Age of Anxiety Chester Kallman pulitzer prize
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~ Thursday, July 8 ~
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Happy Deathday Mr. Shelley!

On this day in 1822, English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died just one month prior to his 30th birthday when he drowned during a storm. Some called his death an accident. Others have suggested suicide as Shelley was rather depressed in those days. And still others believe he was mistaken by pirates for Lord Byron and attacked as a result. What’s your theory?

                              

Percy Bysshe Shelley was not only a prolific but also a versatile poet. The sheer volume of his work is quite impressive for a poet of only 29 years old. Some of our favorite works include Hymn to Intellectual Beauty,The Cenci, Prometheus Unbound, Epipysychidion, Peter Bell the Third and The Witch of Atlas.  In addition, we feel his essay A Defence of Poetry is highly valued as a statement on the moral importance of poetry and of poets, whom he calls “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” While Shelley’s significance to English literature is today widely acknowledged, he was one of the most controversial literary figures of the early nineteenth century.

Percy, who was the husband of Frankenstein’s Mary Shelley, was also a very close friend of Lord Byron and John Keats. It cannot be denied that his work greatly influenced the writings of Robert Browning, Tennyson and even Yeats.

We greatly encourage Shelley enthusiasts to seek out The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe, published in 1824, which includes notes and introduction by Mary Shelley. It is simply beautiful to read her perspective on her husband’s work and the respect she felt for his poetry is abundantly evident. However, if you are strapped for cash, as so many writers are these days, you may want to check out this link which we have found very useful in the past. 

Today, we hope our readers will take a moment to pause and reflect on all the beauty that is around us everyday. Try to see the world as Shelley did- look for the philosophical significance in the mundane. Be brilliant!

Writ eon in peace, Mr. Shelley!

Tags: july 8, percy bysshe shelley deathday dead writer dead writers club 1822 drowned Lord Byron Mary Shelley John Keats a defence of poetry poet english
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~ Thursday, May 13 ~
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A little treat for our readers today… This is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. It is part of a BBC radio broadcast from April 29th, 1937. The talk was called “Craftsmanship” and was part of a series entitled “Words Fail Me”.


The audio is accompanied with photographs of Virginia Woolf.

The text was originally published as an essay in “The Death of the Moth and Other Essays” (1942)


ENJOY!

Tags: writing, Virginia Woolf dead writer dead writers club words bbc recorded voice english writers the death of the moth and other essays 1942 craftsmanship words fail me radio
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~ Friday, April 30 ~
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Happy Deathday Mr. Housman!

English scholar and poet Alfred Edward Housman died on this day in 1936 at the age of 77.

He is remembered first and foremost as an educator of the classics and has been called “the greatest scholar of all time” by some. Amidst his scholastic achievements though, you will find his poetry, which in our opinion is emotionally expressive, romantic and just slightly pessimistic.

       

A.E. Housman’s greatest work, without a doubt, are his cycles of poems which make up A Shopshire Lad. Largely modeled after the Shakespeare sonnets and influenced by the likes of Heinrich Heine, these poems were originally published as a collection in 1896. Though the pieces are not linked through narrative, there are recurring themes which weave them together - creating a synthesis of ghostly beauty and an undercurrent of melancholy that is just poetically delightful to read!

In his later years, he continued to write and just three years before his death, he gave a public lecture in which he spoke of his own work for the very first time. Though an intensely private man, it is interesting to note the impact his works have had on popular culture. A Shopshire Lad has been quoted and/or referenced in works by E.M. Forester, Patrick White, Ian McEwan, Arthur C. Clarke and countless others.

Today, we hope you will take some time to read A Shopshire Lad and reflect on the brilliant mind that produced it.

Write on in peace, Mr. Housman!

Tags: deathday dead writers club poet English april 30 1936 ae housman housman a shopshire lad classics latin scholar
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