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Tag Archives: poet

ذکری شکسپير

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Events

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Aḥmad Zakī Abū Shādī (1892-1955), Annie Bamford, Arab, Arabic, Arabic literature, beekeeping, Cathy Rockwell, Egypt, Egyptian, England, Khalil Mutran (1872-1949), London, Marriott Library, National Poetry Month, physician, poet, Poetry Society, quatrain, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, sonnet, Special Collections, United States, William Shakespeare

PJ7808-S5-D55-1926-portrait

“o Prince of Poetry”

Dhikrá Shaksipīr
Aḥmad Zakī Abū Shādī (1892-1955)
Egypt: al-Maṭbaʻah al-Salafīyah, 1926
First edition
PJ7808.S5 D55 1926

The Egyptian poet Aḥmad Zakī Abū Shādī was a man of many talents. Not only was he renowned as a poet and man of letters, he was also trained as a scientist and physician, and he was fascinated by beekeeping, founding professional beekeeping associations and publishing numerous works on the subject. Besides his native Egypt, he had connections to both England and the United States. He lived in England, where he earned his medical degree, from 1912-1922. In 1920, he married an Englishwoman, Annie Bamford, returning with her to Egypt 1922. Following her death in 1946 he emigrated to the United States, where he continued to be active in the fields of Arabic literature and beekeeping until his untimely death of a stroke in 1955. His private papers and many of his books are now housed in the Marriott Library Special Collections (Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi papers, 1892-1955).

Among such books is “Dhikrá Shaksipīr,” whose title translates as “Remembrance of Shakespeare.” In his introduction, Abu Shadi explains that it is a collection of three poems that he composed at the invitation of the Poetry Society in London to celebrate the eventual reopening of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre that had burned down in 1926. He says that the Society had invited poets from around the world to participate in this. Based on the Society’s guidelines, the three poems are: A sonnet ; a quatrain suitable for posting on the wall of the Theatre ; and an unrestricted poem. This last one is a long ode in traditional Arabic poetic style in praise of Shakespeare.

In his introduction, Abu Shadi concludes with the statement that he is having this work privately published [in Egypt] to make it more accessible to the Arab reader. He laments that Arabic speakers who do not know English are missing out on Shakespearian literature, and he urges that they search out and read Arabic translations of Shakespeare’s works, and recommends in particular those done by the Egytian poet Khalil Mutran (1872-1949).

PJ7808-S5-D55-1926-title
PJ7808-S5-D55-1926-quatrain
“Diverse minds that tell of your guiding light humbly approached you, o Prince of Poetry
For the Theatre, despite its burning, due to your unique spirit remains a marvelous achievement for all eternity
Look, then, at the thousands gathered, whether in body or in spirit
They listen to great wisdome, sanctify8ing in you your genius; thus finding the good fortune of those who adore.”

Contribution and translation by Cathy Rockwell, Special Collections Middle East Cataloger

Shakespeare is coming! The First Folio will arrive at the City Library in October.

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Book of the week – De rerum natura

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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afterlife, Alexander Pope, biblical, blind-tooled, blindstamped, body, British, Cambridge, Church of England, classics, Constance, De rerum natura, decoration, engraved, Epicurus, fire, folio, French Revolution, frontispiece, Fulda, Germany, Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Gilbert Wakefield, gilt, gods, government, Greek, Hamilton, Homer, Horace, Jesus College, Londini, Lucretius, mathematics, ministry, morocco, mortal, nature, New Testament, pamphlets, poem, poet, portrait, punishment, rules, scholar, soul, Titus Lucretius Carus, tragedies, Tuscan, Unitarian, vicar, Virgil, Wa, Wakefield, world

PA6482-A2-1796-v.1-portraitPA6482-A2-1796-v.1-titlePA6482-A2-1796-v.1-pg1

DE RERUM NATURA LIBROS SEX, AD EXEMPLARIUM…
Titus Lucretius Carus (ca. 99 BCE – ca. 55 BCE)
Londini: Impensis editoris, typis A. Hamilton, 1796-7
PA6482 A2 1796 oversize

De Rerum Natura is the only surviving work of Lucretius. Only one manuscript copy of it is known to exist. This manuscript was found in 1417 in a monastery at Fulda in Germany by Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, a Tuscan secretary to a church general council at Constance.

It is a didactic poem of 7,400 lines in six books, in which the poet expounds on the world view of the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus. The object was to abolish belief that the gods intervened in the world and that the soul could experience punishment in an afterlife. Lucretius demonstrated that the world is, instead, governed by mechanical laws of nature. He described the soul as mortal and posited that it perishes with the body.

This is the first edition of the “Wakefield” edition, the edition by Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801). Wakefield was a biblical scholar. The son of a vicar, he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, through a scholarship. He studied mathematics and the classics. Although he took orders, he left the ministry and the Church of England and became a Unitarian. He earned his living as a tutor while writing controversial pamphlets attacking the government. He was imprisoned for two years for the publication of a pamphlet titled, “A Reply to some Parts of the Bishop of Landoff’s Address,” in which he defended the French Revolution. To support himself, he published a translation of the New Testament (1792), companion editions to Horace (1794) and Virgil (1796), an edition with commentary of Greek tragedies (1794), an annotated edition of Alexander Pope’s Homer (1796), and this, his Lucretius. He published his De Rerum Natura at his own expense.

The book established Wakefield as a leading British scholar. The large paper, folio edition was mostly destroyed by a fire in the printing-office in which they were stored.

Engraved portrait of Gilbert Wakefield on frontispiece. Bound in contemporary straight-grained black morocco, panelled covers with broad blind-tooled borders and gilt edges, spine with broad gilt rules and blindstamped decoration. Edition of fifty copies.

 

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Thank you, Anonymous!

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

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1960s, 1970s, Albert Camus, Alfred Hitchcock, California, catalog, Curtis all-rag, DelMonico Books, e. e. cummings, educator, Frances Elizabeth Kent, German, Great Depression, Ian Berry, Immaculate Heart College, Immaculate Heart College Press, Italian, John Cage, judge, Lilian Marks, Lilian Simon, London, Los Angeles, love, Martin Luther King, Michael Duncan, Munich, museums, New York, nun, Ohio, peace, Pennsylvania, Pirandello, Plantin Press, plays, playwright, poems, poet, Poland, Prestel, Roman Catholic, Saul Marks, serigraphs, silkscreen, Sister Mary Corita, Sisters fo the Immaculate Heart of Mary, soldier, The Frances Young Yang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, theater, Ugo Betti, United States

A generous donation from Anonymous adds to our growing collection of material documenting the 1960s.

Spread

The Words of Ugo Betti. Innocence and the Process of Justification in the Late Plays…
Los Angeles: Immaculate Heart College Press, 1965

Ugo Betti (1892-1953) was an Italian judge and poet. He is considered by some to be the greatest Italian playwright since Pirandello. He wrote his first poems while a soldier in German captivity (1917-18). They were published as Il Re Pendieroso in 1922. After the success of his first play, La Padrona, he worked exclusively in theater, for which he wrote twenty-seven plays.

Illustrated with eight serigraphs by Sister Mary Corita (born Frances Elizabeth Kent) (1918-1986), a Roman Catholic nun and educator who worked with silkscreen —  incorporating scriptural quotation, excerpts from well-known authors such as e.e. cummings and Albert Camus, song lyrics, and grocery store signs into her art. Kent belonged to the order of Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. While teaching at Immaculate Heart College her students included John Cage and Alfred Hitchcock. Her work, focused on the themes of love and peace, were popular during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. One of her best known works is “Love Your Brother,” a 1969 piece that features photographs of Martin Luther King overlaid with words in her handwritings. She is famous for her 1985 “Love” stamp.

Sister Mary said, “I really love the look of letters – the letters themselves become a kind of subject matter even apart from their meaning – like apples or oranges are for artists.”

Printed on Curtis all-rag paper at the Plantin Press, Los Angeles. Edition of two hundred and seventy-five copies.

The Plantin Press, a small private press, was begun in 1931 by Saul and Lilian Marks. Saul Marks learned the printing trade in Poland during WWI. He emigrated to the United States in 1921, where he met and married Lilian Simon. The Marks’ moved to Los Angeles in 1930 and set up shop in the midst of the Great Depression. Lilian Marks continued the press after Saul died in 1974, until she sold the business in 1985.


The donation included a catalog accompanying the exhibition, “Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent,” curated by Ian Berry and Michael Duncan, which traveled to museums in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California between 2013 and 2015.

Someday is Now: the Art of Corita Kent
The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College
DelMonico Books, Prestel: Munich, London, New York, 2013
Cover

alluNeedSingleLine

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Book of the Week – Madoc

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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America, Azteca, English, engraved, Indians, Lake Poets, London, Madoc, Mandan, marbled endpapers, Missouri River, morocco, North Dakota, Ohio River, poem, poet, poet laureate, Robert Southey, Romantic Movement, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Susquehanna River, United States, utopian community, Welsh


MADOC
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and A. Constable and Co. Edinburgh, 1805
First edition
PR5464 M2 1805

Robert Southey was an English poet, a follower of the Romantic Movement, one of the “Lake Poets.” He was appointed poet laureate in 1813. Together with his good friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), he planned to found a utopian community on the Susquehanna River in the United States. While this plan never came to fruition, it is probable that Madoc was inspired by this dream. The four hundred and forty-nine page poem, accompanied by one hundred and four pages of notes is the story of a Welsh king, who, around 1169, settled on the Missouri River in America and founded a great race of Indians, the “Aztecas.” The legend of Madoc is more familiarly associated with the Mandan tribe of North Dakota. During the eighteenth century, white explorers and trappers heard stories of a small, peaceful tribe living in Western North Dakota, some of whom had blue eyes, blonde hair and spoke Welsh. It was believed that this tribe was descended from a Welsh settlement on the Ohio River in the mid-fourteenth century. Engraved title-page. Bound in contemporary three-quarter green morocco with marbled endpapers and edges.

alluNeedSingleLine

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