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American literature History 19th century American literature History 20th century Authors Authorship British literature History 18th century British literature History 19th century British literature History 20th century Irish literature History 19th century Irish literature History 20th century Irish literature History 21st centuryFilter By Series
Famous authorsSummary: This overview of Confucius' biography and philosophy from the Famous Authors series contextualizes Confucius' life during the Zhou Dynasty, relaying the Chinese values of family and ancestor-worship, history and record-keeping, and spirituality. This time saw many intellectual developments and the concepts of morality and peace were emerging, and the video demonstrates the major influence...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This overview of the biography and writing of Ernest Hemingway from the Famous Authors series follows the young Hemingway from his boyhood home in Illinois to his start as a reporter in Kansas, which quickly led him to jobs as a reporter and an ambulance driver in WWI. Known for his minimalist style and the depiction of the 'lost generation' in The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's experiences in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this introduction to Robert Louis Stevenson's life and work from the Famous Author's series, the audience gets a look at the Scotland of the nineteenth century and the members of Stevenson's family. By the time Stevenson went to university, he'd committed to becoming a writer and sought out a bohemian, literary life, which upset and intermittently estranged his father. After he suffered some...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This overview of Virginia Woolf's life and work from the Famous Author's series introduces the writer's upperclass family and their many literary friends who cultivated her talents and later inspired characters. The film takes a look at Woolf's response to the early loss of her mother and sister and her mental health struggles thereafter. Woolf secured an important position in London literary...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Opening by introducing William Wordsworth's boyhood home in the Lake District of England, this film from the Famous Authors series offers an overview of the writer's work and biography. The Lake District greatly inspired Wordsworth and resulted in his apparent fascination with nature. The film contextualizes the poet's life at Cambridge and then in France, the ongoing conditions of the French...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this introduction to Edgar Allan Poe's life and work from the Famous Authors series, the viewers follow Poe's early life and fortunate adoption by the Allans. Poe's relationship with Frances Allan was tender, but he and John Allan did not get along. His stepfather sent him away to university and then cut him off completely. In response, Poe went to Boston and joined the army, but persisted...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This installment of the Famous Authors series offers overviews of Jane Austen’s life and works. The video profiles Austen’s family and their connections to England’s society. Austen, born in 1775 and raised in the rectory of Steventon, had five brothers and a sister, all known for their cleverness and humor. She had no formal education but was well-read and came to admire Fanny Burney,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program from the Famous Authors series, viewers are introduced to the biography and work of the French writer Voltaire. The video discusses conditions and politics of 18th century France, and reviews important tenents of the Enlightenment, both critical to understanding the writer's work. Voltaire was often in trouble, and sometimes imprisoned, for voicing his controversial views and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This overview of the biography and fiction of William Faulkner from the Famous Authors series introduces the major themes of Faulkner's poems, plays, short stories, and novels. The film contextualizes life in the American south in the first half of the 20th century; Faulkner's southern upbringing, family history, and race relations in the wake of the Civil War were a major influence on his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This introduction to William Shakespeare's life and works from the Famous Authors series begins at the author's childhood home in Stratford and tours the institutions of the town and country that would have been part of Shakespeare's life. The film follows the 23-year-old writer to London, providing a picture of the city in Elizabethan and Jacobean England when Shakespeare went to make his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This overview of the life and literature of George Eliot from the Famous Authors series follows Eliot's comfortable childhood through the several phases of her education and religious development, during which she discovered major influences like Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, and evangelism. Later in ife, she moved away from her evangelist views, eventually leaving the Church of England all...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program from the Famous Authors series offers an overview of John Steinbeck's life and work, beginning with his upbringing in Salinas, California and the fields surrounding the area. The film discusses the vegetable crops in California and the great need for labor which caused the influx of migrant workers during the depression of the 1930s. Steinbeck witnessed the working of this land...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This introduction to the life and literature of Oscar Wilde from the Famous Authors series begins by introducing Wilde's passionately political, literary, and flamboyant parents and nineteenth century Dublin, the earliest and strongest influences on the writer. Wilde went on to study classics at Oxford and develop his talents. The film discusses Walter Pater's large influence on Wilde's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Opening with an excerpt from 'The Lady of the Lake', this introduction to the life and work of Sir Walter Scott from the Famous Author series contextualizes life in Scotland in the late 18th century. Scott spent much of his younger years touring the country with his lawyer father, becoming fascinated with Scottish culture, landscape, architecture, and people, and eventually going to school for...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This introduction to the life and poetry of Walt Whitman from the Famous Authors series begins by contextualizing the writer's early life in nineteenth century Brooklyn and Long Island, New York. Whitman took a trip to New Orleans in an attempt to start a newspaper, but he was deeply opposed to slavery and did not fare well in the south. While Leaves of Grass was illiciting both praise and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program from the Famous Authors series introduces the rich imaginative life of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, exposed to the world of literature by their father Patrick Brontë priest, examiner, and writer. The family struggled with poverty, and the family home Haworth and moorland provided inspiration for the daughters. Charlotte and Emily were educated at Cowan Bridge School, later...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This overview of Charles Dickens' life and work from the Famous Authors series discusses the author's happy childhood, during which he was close to his father and went to school. However, financial troubles later forced the family to move to London, and Dickens began absorbing the bustling city couched in fog where his novels would be set. Due to his father's debt, he could no longer attend...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this overview of D.H. Lawrence's life and work from the Famous Authors series, viewers are introduced to the conditions of the mining town in England in which Lawrence was born and to his relationship with his mother, both which reappear in Sons and Lovers and his other fiction. The film follows Lawrence and his wife Frieda through their many moves, the inspiration he gained from their...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program from the Famous Composers series offers an overview of the life and work of composer and pianist Johannes Brahms beginning with an introduction to Brahms' family and hometown, the nineteenth century seaport city of Hamburg. The film follows Brahms' musical education with teachers Otto Cossel and Eduard Marxsen, his days of playing in bars and teaching to earn money, and his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This introduction to the life and work of Jonathan Swift from the Famous Authors series explores the political messages and social critiques in Swift's work, including the famous Gulliver's Travels and its public reception. The video begins with Swift's childhood and education in Dublin and England, and reviews the circumstances of the English monarchy, the Whigs and Tories, and other political...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This overview of the life and literature of Emily Dickinson from the Famous Authors series offers an insight into the reclusive author of 1,775 poems and a valuable collection of letters. The video depicts Dickinson's story as that of an individual in a society that smothers individuality and discusses the struggle of a female poet among male contemporaries. She did, however, know of and admire...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This introduction to Herman Melville's life and work from the Famous Authors series begins by introducing the city of New York, Melville's hometown, and the influence living in the busiest maritime port in the world had on his work. Melville eventually left home to work on a sail boat, and soon went to New Bedford, Massachusetts to become a crew member on a whaling ship, an experience that he...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program from the Famous Authors series provides an overview of Mark Twain's life and work, starting with life in nineteenth century Hannibal, Missouri, Twain's childhood home and a major influence on his writing, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain started writing as a newspaper employee in Hannibal, and he joined a militia group there early...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program from the Famous Authors series, the audience is offered an overview of the life and work of Emile Zola, starting with an introduction to the writer's parents and his important boyhood friendship with Paul Cezanne. The film discusses Zola's attachment to themes of nature and liberty. Eventually he was hired by the French publisher Hachette and began gaining social and literary...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005