NAQT Study Set

Her father's 1940 court fight against racist housing laws provided the basis for Hansberry's play about the Younger family, who attempt to move into an all-white Chicago suburb but are confronted by discrimination. The first play by an African-American woman to be performed on Broadway, it also tore down the racial stereotyping found in other works of the time. The title comes from the Langston Hughes poem "Harlem" (often called "A Dream Deferred").

A Raisin in the Sun

Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski represent Williams's two visions of the South: declining "old romantic" vs. the harsh modern era. Blanche is a Southern belle who lost the family estate, and is forced to move into her sister Stella's New Orleans apartment. Stella's husband Stanley is rough around the edges, but sees through Blanche's artifice; he ruins Blanche's chance to marry his friend Mitch by revealing to Mitch that Blanche was a prostitute. Then, after Blanche confronts Stanley, he rapes her, driving her into insanity. The drama was developed into a movie, marking the breakthrough performance of method actor Marlon Brando.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Part of a trinity with Surya (the sun) and Vaayu (the wind), he can be brought to life by rubbing two sticks together. Since he is responsible for sacrificial fires, he is the patron of priests. He has a red body, two heads, three legs, four arms, and seven tongues; he often carries a flaming javelin. In the Mahabharata, his grandfather is one of seven great sages; with the help of Krishna, he devours the Khandav forest.

Agni

Opera by Giuseppe Verdi and Antonio Ghislanzoni, 1871: This Play is about the title Ethiopian princess who is held captive in Egypt. She falls in love with the Egyptian general Radamès and convinces him to run away with her; unfortunately, he is caught by the high priest Ramphis and a jealous Egyptian princess, Amneris. Radamès is buried alive but finds that the title character has snuck into the tomb to join him.

Aida

Actually just the King of Wessex in southwestern England, he expelled the rival Danes from the Mercian town of London in 886, eventually conquering most of the Danelaw territory. He also kept England from the worst of the Dark Ages by encouraging his bishops to foster literacy; in addition, he translated Boethius, Augustine, and the Venerable Bede's works into Anglo-Saxon.

Alfred the Great

One of the "Four Books" used by the ancient Chinese for civil service study, it contains the sayings (aphorisms) of Confucius. The philosopher Confucius did not write or edit the words that make them up; his disciples compiled them in the 5th or 4th century BC. Confucianism is more of a philosophical system than a religion, and Confucius thought of himself more as a teacher than as a spiritual leader. They also contain some of the basic ideas found in Confucianism, such as ren (benevolence) and li (proper conduct).

Analects

His father boxed for Iran in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics; his own Olympic exploits included the 1996 tennis gold. Born in Las Vegas, he reached the world's #3 ranking at age 18 but was better known for his image than for his play. Perhaps the greatest returner and baseline player ever, he won his first major on Wimbledon grass in 1992. Briefly married to Brooke Shields, he fell to #141 in the world in 1997, but after they divorced, he rededicated himself to the game. In 1999 he won the French Open, becoming just the fifth man to complete the career Grand Slam. In all, he has won eight major singles titles (five since 1999), and is now married to women's great Steffi Graf.

Andre Agassi

This architect designed villas in and near Venice, including the Villa Rotonda and Villa Barbaro. He integrated Greco-Roman ideas of hierarchy, proportion, and order with contemporary Renaissance styles. His Four Books on Architecture from 1570 relate his theoretical principles. Among architects heavily influenced by him were Inigo Jones and Thomas Jefferson.

Andrea Palladio

This architect created many extraordinary buildings in Barcelona in the early 20th century. His Art Nouveau-inspired works include the Casa Mila and Casa Batllo apartments, known from their undulating façades, and several works for patron Eusebi Guell, including the Parc Guell, a park in Barcelona. He spent 40 years working on the Expiatory Church of the Holy Family (also known as La Sagrada Familia), which will be finished in 2026. He was also fond of using hyperbolic paraboloids in his work.

Antoni Gaudí

Protestants and Jews assign lower authority to this text because it was written between 300 and 100 BC, but Catholics and Orthodox Christians consider the books that make up the text to be "deuterocanonical," meaning that they are just as important and divinely-inspired as other parts of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Denominations differ as to which books make up the text, but Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch are almost always included.

Apocrypha

The chief hero of the Mahabharata, he is the son of Indra and one of five Pandava brothers, who fight a bitter war against their 100 cousins, Kauravas, culminating at the battle on "Kuru's Field." Before the battle, he asks his charioteer (Krishna) why he must fight. Krishna responds that he must follow a devotion to god (bhakti), and that even as he slays his brethren, it is for a just cause. Along with the rest of the Pandavas, he is married to Draupadi.

Arjuna

He once claimed that he would consider himself a failure if he were remembered only for tennis. The first black man to win either the U.S. Championship (1968) or Wimbledon (1975), he was also the first American tennis player to earn over $100,000 in one year (1970). The author of Hard Road to Glory, a history of black athletes, he announced in 1992 that tainted blood from a 1983 heart surgery had given him the AIDS virus. Arthur-his name Stadium, the current home of the U.S. Open, was named for him in 1997.

Arthur Ashe

The sacred scripture of Zoroastrianism. It consists of five parts: Gathas (poems written by Zoroaster), Visparat (homages to spiritual leaders), Vendidad (legal and medical doctrine), Yashts (hymns to angels and heroes), and Khurda (lesser rituals and hymns). The Gathas may be as old as the 7th century BC, when Zoroaster is thought to have lived, but most of the text was put together by the Sassanid Persian dynasty, between AD 200 and 640. Zoroastrianism centers on the eternal struggle between a good entity (Ahura Mazda, or Ormuzd) and its evil counterpart (Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman); the religion is still practiced by about 120,000 Parsees in Bombay and a few thousand adherents in Iran and Iraq.

Avesta

Sanskrit for "The Song of God," it is a poem found in Book Six of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Likely formalized in the 1st or 2nd century, the text begins on the eve of a battle, when the prince Arjuna asks his charioteer Krishna (an avatar of Vishnu) about responsibility in dealing with the suffering that the impending battle will cause. Krishna tells Arjuna that humans possess a divine self within a material form, and that Arjuna's duty is to love God and do what is right without thinking of personal gain — some of the main tenets of Hinduism.

Bhagavad-Gita

Her records themselves are impressive: 12 Grand Slam singles wins (including six Wimbledons) and 20 overall Wimbledon titles. She, however, is best known for advancing women's athletics. Her brother, Randy Moffitt, pitched for the San Francisco Giants; she herself reached a #4 world ranking in 1960 and turned pro eight years later. At the time, prize money for women was paltry, so she co-founded the Virginia Slims Tour, and in 1971 became the first female athlete to earn $100,000 in a year. Two years later, in front of over 30,000 at the Astrodome, she whipped Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes." She retired in 1983, but not before winning a singles tournament at age 39.

Billie Jean King

On both grass and clay in the late 1970s, resistance to him was futile; he won Wimbledon five straight years (1976-80) and the French Open six times, for a total of 11 majors. He got started at age nine after his father won a tennis racket in a ping-pong tournament and gave it to him. He took his first French in 1974 and dominated through 1981, when John McEnroe finally knocked him off at Wimbledon. He then inexplicably retired at 26; he tried an unsuccessful comeback in the early 1990s. Despite his great success, He never won the U.S. Open (reaching the final four times). He played at the Australian Open only once, usually preferring to take the winter months off.

Bjorn Borg

Published in 1830 by Joseph Smith. Mormons believe that the prophet Moroni revealed the location the text to Smith, and then Smith translated it from a "reformed Egyptian" language. The Book of Mormon is inscribed on thin gold plates, and documents the history of a group of Hebrews who migrated to America around 600 BC. This group divided into two tribes: the Lamanites (ancestors of American Indians), and the highly civilized Nephites, a chosen people instructed by Jesus but killed by the Lamanites around AD 421.

Book of Mormon

Opera by Modeste Mussorgsky, 1874: The opera's prologue shows the title character, the chief adviser of Ivan the Terrible, being pressured to assume the throne after Ivan's two children die. In the first act the religious novice Grigori decides that he will impersonate that younger son, Dmitri (the [first] "false Dmitri"), whom, it turns out, the title character had killed. Grigori raises a general revolt and his health falls apart as he is taunted by military defeats and dreams of the murdered tsarevich. The opera ends with the title character dying in front of the assembled boyars (noblemen).

Boris Godunov

The third of the Trimurti, they are the Creator. By dropping an egg into the cosmic waters, they hatch a younger form of themself that creates other beings. Also the chief priest, they have four heads that each point in a cardinal direction, representing the Four Vedas. they have a fifth head until Shiva plucked it off; as punishment for that act, Shiva is forced to wander as a beggar and carry their severed skull as a bowl. Their wife is Savitri, who curses them after they let a cow-maiden stand in for her at an important ritual. Few people worship them, either because of the curse or because they lost a power struggle to Vishnu.

Brahma

Though born into a well-to-do family, he often dealt with the betrayed ideals from the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the subject of both his first novel, Where the Air is Clear (1958), and his most successful book, The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962). Other notable novels include Terra nostra, set during the reign of King Philip II of Spain, and The Old Gringo, which portrays Ambrose Bierce's last days in Mexico. He also wrote absurdist plays and essay collections on Mexican and American art and literature.

Carlos Fuentes

Opera by Georges Bizet and Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, 1875: The title character is a young gypsy who works in a cigarette factory in Seville. She is arrested by the corporal Don José for fighting but cajoles him into letting her escape. They meet again at an inn where she tempts him into challenging his captain; that treason forces him to join a group of smugglers. In the final act, the ragtag former soldier encounters the title character at a bullfight where her lover Escamillo is competing (the source of the "Toreador Song") and stabs her. The libretto was based on a novel by Prosper Merimée.

Carmen

Centers on a fight between two sons, Gooper and Brick, over the estate of their father "Big Daddy" Pollitt, who is dying of cancer. After his friend Skipper dies, ex-football star Brick turns to alcohol and will not have sex with his wife Maggie ("the cat"). Yet Maggie announces to Big Daddy that she is pregnant in an attempt to force a reconciliation with—and win the inheritance for—Brick.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

He came into conflict with Parliament almost from the beginning of his reign: when his minister, the Duke of Buckingham, asked for money to fight a costly war against France, he was forced to sign the Petition of Right (1628). From 1629 to 1640, he tried to rule England without Parliament, a period known as his "Personal Rule" (or, according to his critics, the "Eleven Years' Tyranny"). His attempts to impose English forms of church government on Presbyterian Scotland resulted in the Bishops' Wars (1639-1640), a military humiliation that forced him to call the Short Parliament (spring 1640) and Long Parliament (fall of 1640 and after). He and the Long Parliament bickered over a variety of issues, including the fate of his advisor the Earl of Strafford, parliamentarian proposals for reform of the English church, and finally the outbreak of rebellion in Ireland (October 1641). In January 1642 he tried to arrest five of his opponents during the sitting of the House of Commons; Parliament demanded control over England's militia and by August 1642 the country was plunged into civil war. He fled (pro-parliamentarian) London, choosing instead to set up his own Cavalier court at the university town of Oxford. Within four years his armies were defeated; from January 1647 he was a prisoner of Parliament. In 1648 royalist forces in provincial England rose up in the so-called "Second English Civil War," which pushed hardliners in Parliament to put the king on trial. Parliament established a "High Court of Justice" to try the king for treason; he was beheaded at Whitehall on January 30, 1649.

Charles I

While Oliver Cromwell ruled the Commonwealth, he was crowned King of Scotland in 1651. After Cromwell died, he used the Declaration of Breda to restore himself to the English throne. He fought two lackluster wars against the Dutch, and needed protection from Louis XIV through the Treaty of Dover. His wife Catherine of Braganza produced no legitimate heirs, but this "Merry Monarch" has as many as 14 illegitimate children. Tolerant of Catholics, he dissolved Parliament over the issue in 1681 and refused to prevent his brother James from succeeding him.

Charles II

Queen of the Clay Courts, she won the French Open a record seven times and rolled off a 125-match win streak on the surface. As a 15-year old, she upset Margaret Court, who had just won the Grand Slam. 1974 was the first of a record 13 straight years in which she won a major — several of them hard-fought against her rival, Martina Navratilova. In all, Evert took 18 Grand Slam singles titles, and was the first female player to win $1 million in her career. She was married to British tennis player John Lloyd for eight years, but they divorced in 1987, and she then wed Olympic skier Andy Mill.

Chris Evert

This play questions American values of success. Willy Loman is a failed salesman whose firm fires him after 34 years. Despite his own failures, he desperately wants his sons Biff and Happy to succeed. Told in a series of flashbacks, the story points to Biff's moment of hopelessness, when the former high school star catches his father Willy cheating on his mother, Linda. Eventually, Willy can no longer live with his perceived shortcomings, and commits suicide in an attempt to leave Biff with insurance money.

Death of a Salesman

Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, 1787: Don Giovanni (the Italian form of "Don Juan") attempts to seduce Donna Anna, but is discovered by her father, the Commendatore, whom he kills in a swordfight. Later in the act, his servant Leporello recounts his master's 2,000-odd conquests in the "Catalogue Aria." Further swordfights and assignations occur prior to the final scene, in which a statue of the Commendatore comes to life, knocks on the door to the room in which Don Giovanni is feasting, and then opens a chasm that takes him down to hell.

Don Giovanni

This architect was born in Finland but spent most of his life in the U.S. and died in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He designed many buildings on the campuses of MIT and Yale, as well as Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. and the TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. He may be best known for designing the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, though he died before it was completed. Many of his works are characterized by elegant, sweeping forms, such as the Kresge Auditorium at MIT.

Eero Saarinen

Known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never married, as Henry VIII's daughter by Anne Boleyn, the Catholic Church considered her illegitimate. After the death of her Catholic sister Mary I, she tried to restore religious order by declaring England a Protestant state but naming herself only "Governor" of the Church. She foiled attempts at her throne by Spanish king Philip II and Mary, Queen of Scots; the latter she reluctantly executed in 1587. Her reign saw great expansion of the English navy and the emergence of William Shakespeare, but when she died, the Crown went to Scottish king James VI, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Elizabeth I

Representative of the modern ceremonial monarchy, she and her husband "Prince" Philip Mountbatten have traveled the globe representing British interests. Marital failures by her sons Charles, Prince of Wales and Andrew have plagued her reign. She superseded Victoria as the longest-reigning British monarch.

Elizabeth II

A friend of Donatello, this man was a skilled sculptor and goldsmith, whose 1401 competition with Lorenzo Ghiberti for the commission of the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery is a frequent question topic (Ghiberti got the chief commission). As an architect, he is mainly known for the extraordinary octagonally-based dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (also known as the Florence Cathedral and often called the Duomo, though that is just the general Italian term for a cathedral), which dominates the Florentine skyline and is across the street from the Florence Baptistery. The task required an innovative supporting framework and occupied much of his career (as described in detail in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists). Other projects include the Spedale degli Innocenti (a hospital), the Old Sacristy at San Lorenzo, and the Pazzi Chapel in the Cloisters of Santa Croce, all from 1421 to 1430.

Filippo Brunelleschi

Winner of the 1989 Pritzker Prize, this man is best-known today for large-scale compositions like the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle (formerly known as the EMP Museum and Experience Music Project), the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the recent, controversial Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. (Bilbao natives describe the latter as "the artichoke," because of its layers of abstract titanium structures.) He often uses uncommon materials such as plywood and limestone; his designs range from Kobe's Fishdance Restaurant, shaped like a giant fish, to the soft-sculpture look of the so-called "Fred and Ginger" buildings in Prague. He also designs furniture: the Easy Edges line is made of laminated cardboard; His namesake Collection consists of chairs named for hockey terms (e.g. Cross-Check and Power Play).

Frank Gehry

Born in Wisconsin, this man worked under Louis Sullivan before founding a Chicago practice. His early homes, like the Robie House — which is adjacent to the campus of the University of Chicago — are in the "Prairie" style: horizontal orientation and low roofs. His "organic architecture" tries to harmonize with its inhabitants and site; examples include the Kaufmann House (also known as Fallingwater) in Pennsylvania; the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin; and Taliesin, his home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin. (There is also a Taliesin West, his home and studio in Arizona.) Other notable works are the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Larkin Building in Buffalo, the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, which was one of few buildings to survive a 1923 earthquake (though it has since been demolished).

Frank Lloyd Wright

The master of magic realism, his birthplace, Aracataca was the model for the fictional town Macondo. The town played a prominent role in many of his works, such as Leaf Storm and his seminal novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), which details the decline of the Buendía family over seven generations. A newspaper journalist in the 1950s, he exposed a naval scandal (chronicled in The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor). Other prominent novels include In Evil Hour, Love in the Time of Cholera, and The General in His Labyrinth, a depiction of Simón Bolívar's final years.

Gabriel García Marquez

The first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. At first a prominent educator, she wrote "Sonnets of Death" (1914) after the suicide of her fiancé. Those sonnets later appeared in her most famous collection, Desolation (1922). A native Chilean, she served as a diplomat both in the United States and Europe. Langston Hughes translated a portion of Mistral's poetry into English just after she died.

Gabriela Mistral

This elephant-headed god of wisdom and learning is often shown riding a rat. Parvati "gives birth" to him by creating him from the saffron paste she scrubbed off of herself after bathing. When Parvati instructs him not to let anyone in as she took another bath, he prevents Shiva from entering, prompting Shiva to cut off his head. To calm Parvati, Shiva tells servants to take the head of the first baby found whose mother had her back turned; the servants bring back the head of a baby elephant. He has two wives (Riddhi and Siddhi), two sons, and a daughter. People pray to this remover of obstacles and bringer of good fortune before they commence business.

Ganesha

Though he lost the American colonies in the Revolutionary War, Britain's economic empire expanded during his reign. While his ministers kept their lives, they fell from power frequently, including William Pitt the Elder, Lord Bute, and Lord North. Popular at home, he suffered from porphyria, causing the "madness" that ultimately led to the Regency period (1811-1820) of his son the fourth of his name to rule britain.

George III

This text is a report of the words or actions of a Muslim religious figure, most frequently the prophet Muhammad. Each consists of a matn, or text of the original oral law itself, as well as an isnad, or chain of authorities through which it has been passed by word of mouth through the generations. Collectively, the hadith point Muslims toward the Sunna, or practice of the Prophet, which together with the Qur'an forms the basis for shari'a, usually translated as Islamic law.

Hadith

Son of the wind god Vaayu and Queen Anjana, he has a human body with a monkey's head. As a boy he swallows the sun (mistaking it for a piece of fruit); the angry Indra whips him with a thunderbolt. In response, the wind god Vaayu refuses to breathe air into the world, prompting Indra to apologize and the other gods to bestow immortality and shapeshifting ability on him. He figures prominently in the Ramayana, where he flies to Lanka to tell Sita that Rama will rescue her from Ravana.

Hanuman

The son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, he married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, and invaded England the following year, forcing Stephen of Blois to acknowledge Henry as his heir. While king he developed the common law and due process, but fought with Thomas à Becket over submission to the Pope; He had Becket executed in 1170 but performed penance at Canterbury. Eleanor and his four sons conspired with French king Philip II against him on several occasions.

Henry II

The son of Tudor founder Henry VII, he brought England into both the Renaissance and the Reformation. He patronized the philosopher Erasmus, the painter Hans Holbein the Younger, and the writer Thomas More. Originally a supporter of the Catholic Church — the Pope had named him "Defender of the Faith" — he named himself head of the Church of England in 1533 so that he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. He executed top ministers who crossed him, including Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More. He married six times, but only his third wife, Jane Seymour, bore him a son, the sickly Edward VI.

Henry VIII

Born in China, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1935. Though he has also designed moderate-income housing, he is best known for large-scale projects. His works include the Mile High Center in Denver, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the John Hancock Building in Boston, the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Fragrant Hill Hotel in Beijing, and the recent Miho Museum of Art in Shiga, Japan. He may be best known for two fairly recent works: the glass pyramid erected outside the Louvre in 1989, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, completed in 1995.

I. M. Pei

The god of rain, thunder, and war, he wields the thunderbolt (vajra) and rides Airavat, the four-tusked white elephant. In early Vedic times he was king of the gods who ruled swarga; many Rig Veda hymns are devoted to him. With the aid of both the Marut storm gods and his favorite drink, soma, he leads the Aryan conquest of India. He also defeats the dragon Vritra, who had stolen the world's water.

Indra

Actually born in Peru, at age three she moved to her mother's native Chile. A successful news reporter in her twenties, she and her family fled to Venezuela after General Augusto Pinochet deposed her uncle Salvador, setting up a dictatorship. Her formal literary career began at age 40, when she published The House of the Spirits, a magical-realist work that chronicles several generations of the Trueba family. Other works of fiction include the short-story collection Eva Luna (1989) and Paula (1995), which detailed her care for her terminally ill daughter.

Isabel Allende

At age one he succeeded his mother Mary as King James VI of Scotland. As the great-great-grandson of Henry VII, he claimed the English throne upon the death of Elizabeth I. He was the intended target of Catholic fanatic Guy Fawkes' failed Gunpowder Plot in 1605. A believer in absolutism, he dissolved Parliament from 1611 to 1621, favoring ministers Robert Cecil and the Duke of Buckingham instead. His rule saw English expansion into North America, through royal charter in Virginia and Puritan protest in Massachusetts.

James I

The 1678 Popish Plot against Charles II would have elevated the Roman Catholic to the throne, had it been real and not fabricated by Titus Oates. His three years, however, did feature heavy favoritism toward Catholics, so much so that Protestants invited his son-in-law William of Orange to rule England, deposing him in the Glorious Revolution. Exiled to Louis XIV's court, he made an attempt to regain his crown in 1690 but was routed at the Battle of the Boyne.

James II

Though he tried to seize the crown from his brother Richard while the latter was in Germany, Richard forgave him and made him his successor. Excommunicated by the Pope for four years for refusing to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was also weak as a fighter, as French King Philip II routed him at Bouvines in 1214. A year later, England's barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede, an event that marked the beginning of the development of the British constitution.

John Lackland

Though perhaps best known for his fiery temper and abuse of referees (with taunts like "You can't be serious!"), he was the dominant player of the early 1980s. As a 17-year old amateur qualifier, he made the semifinals of Wimbledon, and in 1979 he won the first of three straight U.S. Opens. He almost ended Borg's run of Wimbledons in a five-set thriller in 1980, but succeeded the following year. In 1984, he compiled an 82-3 record, winning Wimbledon and his fourth U.S. Open, for a total of seven majors. An outstanding doubles player as well, he won 77 titles, many with partner Peter Fleming. He also played in the Davis Cup 12 times, captaining the U.S. team in 2000.

John McEnroe

One-quarter English, he learned that language before he learned Spanish. Educated in Europe during World War I, he met a circle of avant-garde poets in Spain, which inspired him to found the ultraismo movement and publish the collection Fervor of Buenos Aires (1923) when he returned to Argentina. While working in a library, he developed his greatest short stories, collected in A Universal History of Infamy (1935), Ficciones (1944), and The Aleph (1949). By his fifties, a disorder inherited from his father had taken his eyesight, but in 1962 he completed the influential story collection Labyrinths.

Jorge Luis Borges

Best known as a poet and a revolutionary, he fought tirelessly for Cuban independence. Imprisoned at age sixteen and exiled from the island several times, he settled in New York for the last fifteen years of his life, where he wrote essays on Walt Whitman, Jesse James, and the threat of Latin American economic dependence on the United States. His Ill-Omened Friendship (1885) is considered the first Spanish modernist novel, and his poetry collections include Our America and Simple Verses, which contains the poem "Guantanamera," the inspiration for several songs. He was killed in a skirmish at Dos Ríos while participating in an invasion with other Cuban exiles.

José Martí

This eighth avatar of Vishnu is born when Vishnu plucks two of his own hairs — one light, one dark — and uses the dark hair to impregnate Devaki. Her husband Vasudeva saves him from evil King Kansa by carrying him across the river Yamuna to safety in Gokula. he can be depicted as a child, adolescent, or adult. As an infant, he plays pranks such as stealing butter. As a youthful lover, he plays the flute and dances with the gopis (cow-maidens) in the Vrindavana forest. As an adult, he is a dark-skinned warrior with a light, angelic face, charioteer to Arjuna (in the Mahabharata). In the Bhagavad-Gita it is he who reveals the importance of dharma and bhakti. His consort is the cowherd girl Radha.

Krishna

Opera by Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica, and Giuseppe Giacosa, 1896: This opera tells the story of four extremely poor friends who live in the Latin (i.e., Students') Quarter of Paris: Marcello the artist, Rodolfo the poet, Colline the philosopher, and Schaunard the musician. Rodolfo meets the seamstress Mimì who lives next door when her single candle is blown out and needs to be relit. Marcello is still attached to Musetta, who had left him for the rich man Alcindoro. In the final act, Marcello and Rodolfo have separated from their lovers, but cannot stop thinking about them. Musetta bursts into their garret apartment and tells them that Mimi is dying of consumption (tuberculosis); when they reach her, she is already dead. This opera was based on a novel by Henry Murger and, in turn, formed the basis of the hit 1996 musical Rent by Jonathan Larson.

La bohème

Novelist, diarist, and lady-in-waiting. She was the author of the Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari), the first known novel, and a collection of tanka poems. The daughter of the court official Fujiwara Tametoki, she sat in on the classical Chinese literature lessons that her brother received, in spite of the Heian traditions against higher education for women.

Lady Murasaki Shikibu

The last and greatest treasure born from the "churning of the ocean," she is the goddess of prosperity and patron to moneylenders. The epitome of feminine beauty, she sits or stands on a lotus flower and appears in her own avatars alongside Vishnu: Sita to his Rama; Padma the lotus to Vamana the dwarf; Radha (or Rukmini) to Krishna. A form of the mother goddess (Shakti, or Devi), she also represents virtue and honesty.

Lakshmi

Possibly more influential even than Wright, he wrote the 1923 book Towards a New Architecture, standard reading in architectural theory courses. One famous quote of his is "A house is a machine for living in." His floor plans were influenced by Cubist principles of division of space, and the Villa Savoye (Poissy, France) is his best-known early work. He wrote of the "Radiant City" begun anew, a completely planned city with skyscrapers for residents. Applications of his approach to government buildings (such as in Brasilia or in Chandigarh, India), however, largely failed, as did many urban renewal projects produced on the same ideological foundation. Nonetheless, he influenced every other 20th-century figure on this list.

Le Corbusier

O'Neill wrote it fifteen years earlier and presented the manuscript to his third wife with instructions that it not be produced until 25 years after his death. Actually produced three years after he died, it centers on Edmund and the rest of the Tyrone family, but is really an autobiographical account of the dysfunction of O'Neill's own family, set on one day in August 1912. The father is a miserly actor, while the mother is a morphine addict, and the brother is a drunk; they argue and cut each other down throughout the play.

Long Day's Journey Into Night

He did not design the first skyscraper, but did become a vocal champion of skyscrapers as reflections of the modern age. Though most associated with Chicago, his best-known work is the 1891 Wainwright Building in St. Louis. His partnership with Dankmar Adler produced over 100 buildings. Later works, such as the Babson, Bennett, and Bradley Houses, reflect an organic architecture distinct from that of his onetime employee Frank Lloyd Wright. His dictum that "form should follow function" strongly influenced modern architecture; his writings helped break the profession from classical restraints.

Louis Sullivan

The leading architect of the International Style of skyscraper design, he (like Walter Gropius) worked in the office of Peter Behrens. He directed the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933, shutting it down before the Nazis could do so. His works include the Barcelona Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition; two adjacent apartment buildings at 860 and 880 North Lake Shore Drive in Chicago; the New National Gallery in Berlin; and the Seagram Building in New York, which he co-designed with Philip Johnson. He asserted that "less is more" as a principle of his architectural style. His glass-covered steel structures influenced the design of office buildings in nearly every major city in the U.S.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Opera by Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica, and Giuseppe Giacosa, 1904: The American naval lieutenant Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton is stationed in Nagasaki where, with the help of the broker Goro, he weds the young girl Cio-Cio-San with a marriage contract with a cancellation clause. He later returns to America, leaving Cio-Cio-San to raise their son "Trouble" (whom she will rename "Joy" upon his return). When Pinkerton and his new American wife Kate do return, Cio-Cio-San gives them her son and stabs herself with her father's dagger. The opera is based on a play by David Belasco.

Madama Butterfly

The most prolific winner, male or female, she amassed 62 Grand Slam titles, 24 of them in singles (3 Wimbledon, 5 French, 5 U.S., and 11 in her native Australia). Billie Jean King called Court "The Arm" because of her long reach, aided by her height of nearly six feet. In 1970 she became the second woman (after Maureen Connolly) to win the Grand Slam, taking 21 singles championships overall that year; less impressive was her 1973 loss to 55-year old Bobby Riggs. She did defeat King, Riggs's nemesis, 22 of 32 times. She retired in 1977 and became a lay minister.

Margaret Smith Court

While attending military school in Lima, he wrote the play The Escape of the Inca (1952), but the harsh treatment he received there was the basis for his novel The Time of the Hero. Conversation in the Cathedral (1969) was his serious take on living under the dictatorship of Manuel Odría, while in 1977 he published the lighter, autobiographical Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, about soap operas. Other important works include The War of the End of the World and A Fish in the Water, which discusses his political career; he ran for president of Peru in 1990 but was defeated by Alberto Fujimori.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Born in Prague, she defected to the United States in 1975 because the Czech Tennis Federation had taken most of her earnings. A bit heavy early in her career, she won the first two of her nine Wimbledons in 1978-79 but subsequent losses led her to pursue a grueling fitness regimen. This paid off: She won 18 singles Grand Slams (58 overall), 167 total singles titles, and even more doubles crowns, many with partner Pam Shriver. A Wimbledon finalist at 37, she retired from singles in 1994, but returned to play doubles in 2000. In 2003 she tied Billie Jean King with 20 overall Wimbledons, taking the mixed doubles at age 46.

Martina Navratilova

He left his native Guatemala in 1923 to study in Paris. There he discovered Mayan mythology, and translated the Popol Vuh into Spanish; the theme would pervade his work, such as 1963's Mulata de tal. He most famous novel, El señor presidente (1946), was a satire against the oppressive Guatalemalan dictatorship. He also completed a trilogy that blasted exploitation by the American-led United Fruit Company, and the short-story collection Weekend in Guatemala (1956), based on the CIA-led overthrow of president Jacobo Arbenz's liberal government.

Miguel Asturias

This play is really a trilogy, consisting of "Homecoming," "The Hunted," and "The Haunted." Though it is set in post-Civil War New England, O'Neill used Aeschylus's tragedy The Oresteia as the basis for the plot. Lavinia Mannon desires revenge against her mother, Christine, who with the help of her lover Adam Brant has poisoned Lavinia's father Ezra; Lavinia persuades her brother Orin to kill Brant. A distressed Christine commits suicide, and, after Orin and Lavinia flee to the South Seas, Orin cannot stand the guilt and kills himself as well, leaving Lavinia in the house alone.

Mourning Becomes Electra

Just weeks before turning 21, she bested Serena Williams to win the 2018 U.S. Open. Months later, she won her second major in as many tries at the 2019 Australian Open. She is the first Japanese-born player to win any Grand Slam title. As of 2020, she is the highest-paid female athlete in the world, with annual earnings of over $37 million—the highest single-year total of any female athlete ever, easily beating a record once held by fellow tennis star Maria Sharapova. She has Japanese and Haitian ancestry.

Naomi Osaka

This Serbian-born player has made more money playing than any other player in history, over $145 million. In 2015, he reached the finals of 15 straight tournaments in which he entered, and won three of the four Grand Slam events. After winning the French Open in 2016, he became the third man ever to hold all four Grand Slam titles at once. At the 2020 U.S. Open, he was controversially disqualified after a ball he hit accidentally hit a line judge in the throat; he had been the top seed of the tournament and was the first top seed to receive a disqualification at a major event. As of 2020, he is coached by Croatian tennis legend Goran Ivaniševic.

Novak Djokovic

A prominent poet and essayist, he supported leftist causes in Mexico; he fought briefly for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He published the poetry collection Luna silvestre at age 19, and his 584-line poem The Sun Stone deals with the planet Venus, an important symbol to the Aztecs. While studying in Los Angeles, he observed flamboyantly-dressed Mexican-American pachucos ("zoot-suiters"), who inspired him to write about Mexico and its Native American/mestizo heritage in his pivotal essay collection The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950). Another prose work, In the Light of India (1997), reflected his part-(East) Indian heritage.

Octavio Paz

A sentimental story that takes place in the village of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire just after the turn of the 20th century, it is divided into three acts: "Daily Life" (Professor Willard and Editor Webb gossip on the everyday lives of town residents); "Love and Marriage" (Emily Webb and George Gibbs fall in love and marry); and "Death" (Emily dies while giving birth, and her spirit converses about the meaning of life with other dead people in the cemetery). A Stage Manager talks to the audience and serves as a narrator throughout the drama, which is performed on a bare stage.

Our Town

Born Neftali Reyes, he adopted the surname of the 19th-century Czech poet Jan Neruda. Gabriela Mistral was the head of his school in the small city Temuco. In 1923 his best-known work, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, was published, which led to diplomatic appointments. As a penniless consul in Burma in the 1930s, he wrote the surrealist collection Residence on Earth. He served in the Chilean senate in the 1940s, though government opponents forced him into exile over his Communist views. Crossing the Andes on horseback inspired his epic Canto general (1950). He died of cancer days after his friend Salvador Allende was deposed.

Pablo Neruda

"Pistol Pete" burst onto the scene in 1990, when he became the youngest man ever to win the U.S. Open. He would take five U.S. Opens and two Australian Opens, but his greatest accomplishments came on the Wimbledon grass. Starting in 1993 he won Wimbledon seven times in eight years, losing only to Richard Krajicek in the quarterfinals in 1996. The last Wimbledon win (2000) gave him the all-time men's major record, passing Roy Emerson's 12. Married to actress Bridgette Wilson, he silenced his critics (who thought he was washed up) by defeating Andre Agassi for the 2002 U.S. Open title — then he retired.

Pete Sampras

Arabic for "recitation," it is the most sacred scripture of Islam. The text is subdivided into 114 chapters, called suras, which — except the first one — are arranged in descending order of length. According to Muslim belief, the angel Jibril (Gabriel) visited the prophet Muhammad in AD 610 and revealed the work to him. Various suras discuss absolute submission to Allah (God), happiness in paradise versus torture in hell, and the mercy, compassion, and justice of Allah. The third caliph, Uthman (644-656), formalized the text after many of his oral reciters were killed in battle.

Qur'an

Like his long-time rival Roger Federer, he has won a total of 20 majors. Known as the greatest clay-court player in history, he earned 13 of his major wins at the French Open at Roland-Garros. He is considered part of the "Big Four" of 21st-century tennis players (with Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray), and is the only left-handed player among them. He and Andre Agassi are the only two singles players to win each of the four Grand Slam tournaments and an Olympic gold medal, which Nadal won in 2008. He is from Mallorca in the Balearic Islands.

Rafael Nadal

The seventh avatar of Vishnu is hero of the Ramayana. Born as a prince to King Dasharatha and Queen Kaushalya, he wins the hand of his wife Sita in a competition held by Sita's father, King Janaka; only he can string Shiva's bow. When his aunt Kaikeyi schemes to deprive him of Dasharatha's throne by putting her son Bharata there, he and Sita are banished to a forest for 14 years. During that time, the ten-headed demon Ravana kidnaps Sita, but he rescues her and kills Ravana. Bharata abdicates; He makes Sita walk through fire to prove that Ravana had not corrupted her.

Rama

The third son of Henry II, he spent only five months of his reign in England. He went on the Third Crusade to Jerusalem, winning many victories in the Holy Land, but on his way back was captured by Leopold V, Duke of Austria. He also fought Philip II in Normandy, and died while defending his possessions in Aquitaine.

Richard I (the Lion-Hearted)

He was made Duke of Gloucester in 1461 when his brother Edward IV deposed the Lancastrian king Henry VI, as part of the Wars of the Roses. Upon Edward's death in 1483, he served as regent to his nephew Edward V, but likely had the boy murdered in the Tower of London that year. Two years later, he died at the hands of Henry Tudor's Lancastrian forces at Bosworth Field, ending the Wars of the Roses and beginning the reign of Henry VII.

Richard III

This swiss superstar became the number-one player in the world in February 2004 and held that spot until he was eclipsed by Rafael Nadal in August 2008, a full 237 weeks later. He was 21 when he earned his first of eight Wimbledon championships in 2003, and he stayed dominant for nearly 15 years, earning his 20th major title at the 2018 Australian Open. At the 2008 Olympics, he earned a gold medal in men's doubles with fellow Swiss star Stan Wawrinka. In 2017, he founded the Laver Cup, a team event that pits European players against the rest of the world.

Roger Federer

Opera by Richard Strauss based on the play by Oscar Wilde, 1905: Jokanaan (John the Baptist) is imprisoned in the dungeons of King Herod. Herod's 15-year-old step-daughter the title character becomes obsessed with the prisoner's religious passion and is incensed when he ignores her advances. Later in the evening, Herod orders the title character to dance for him (the "Dance of the Seven Veils"), but she refuses until he promises her "anything she wants." She asks for the head of Jokanaan and eventually receives it, after which a horrified Herod orders her to be killed; his soldiers crush her with their shields.

Salome

Like Lady Murasaki, she was a lady-in-waiting of the Empress. Since Lady Murasaki and her were contemporaries and known for their wit, they were often rivals*. Her only major work is the Pillow Book (Makura no soshi), which is considered the best source of information about life at the Japanese court during the Heian period (784-1185).

Sei Shonagon

Also known as Lord Mahesh, he is the Destroyer in the Trimurti. Developed from Rudra, the Vedic god of death, he is often shown sitting on a tiger skin and riding the bull Nandi. He is also associated with a lingam (phallus). He has three eyes, of which the third (in the middle of his head) is all-knowing; when it opens, the world is destroyed and regenerated. Lord of all underworld beings, he wears a necklace of skulls and another made of a snake. He carries a trident as a weapon and has a blue throat, the result of drinking poison while the ocean churns. Parvati, one of his several consorts, bears him two sons: Kartikeya (the god of war) and Ganesha.

Shiva

Several incarnations of the "mother goddess" take this moniker. Parvati, the most benevolent form, is the reincarnation of Sati, who threw herself into the fire. Durga is a demon-slayer who rides a lion into battle and carries a weapon in each of her many arms. Kali is a black-skinned goddess of destruction, who defeats the demon leader Raktavija by drinking all of his blood. Although Kali's dance can destroy the world, Shiva throws himself at her feet to calm her, turning her into Parvati.

Shiva's consort

When fire destroyed much of London in 1666, this man was an Oxford astronomy professor who had designed his first building just four years earlier. Charles II named him the King's Surveyor of Works in 1669, and he was involved in rebuilding more than 50 London churches in the next half-century, including Saint Paul's Cathedral. An inscription near his tomb in Saint Paul's declares "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you."

Sir Christopher Wren

Her most devastating shot earned her the moniker "Fraulein Forehand." she turned pro at age 13 and steadily rose through the rankings, garnering the #1 ranking and her first major (French) in 1987. The following year, she made history by winning the Grand Slam and the gold medal at the Seoul Olympics, the only player ever to go 5-for-5 in one year. Seven Wimbledons, six French, five U.S., and four Australians add up to 22 major career singles crowns — the last coming at the French in 1999 after two years of major back injuries. She retired that fall, and is now raising her son Jaden with her husband Andre Agassi.

Steffi Graf

Hebrew for "instruction," the text is a codification of Jewish oral law, based on the Torah. It consists of the Mishnah (the laws themselves), and the Gemara (scholarly commentary on the Mishnah). The Gemara developed in two Judaic centers, Palestine and Babylonia, so there are two texts (Palestinian and Babylonian), the latter considered more authoritative. Rabbis and lay scholars finished the Babylonian text around 600.

Talmud

Philosophical text behind Daoism, a religion-philosophy founded by the semi-legendary Lao Tzu in the sixth century BC, though scholars now believe it was written about 200 years later, during the Warring States period of the late Zhou dynasty. The text instructs adherents in restraint and passiveness, allowing the natural order of the universe to take precedent.

Tao Te Ching

Opera by Gioacchino Rossini and Cesare Sterbini, 1816: Count Almaviva loves Rosina, the ward of Dr. Bartolo. Figaro (who brags about his wit in "Largo al factotum") promises to help him win the girl. He tries the guise of the poor student Lindoro, a drunken soldier, and then a replacement music teacher, all of which are penetrated by Dr. Bartolo. Eventually, they succeed by climbing in with a ladder and bribing the notary who was to marry Rosina to Dr. Bartolo himself. This opera is also based on a work of Pierre de Beaumarchais and is a prequel to The Marriage of Figaro.

The Barber of Seville

Miller chose the 1692 Salem witch trials as his setting, but the work is really an allegorical protest against the McCarthy anti-Communist "witch-hunts" of the early 1950s. In the story, Elizabeth Proctor fires the servant Abigail Williams after she finds out Abigail had an affair with her husband. In response, Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft. She stands trial and is acquitted, but then another girl accuses her husband, John, and as he refuses to turn in others, he is killed, along with the old comic figure, Giles Corey. Also notable: Judge Hathorne is a direct ancestor of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Crucible

Partly based on Williams' own family, the drama is narrated by Tom Wingfield, who supports his mother Amanda and his crippled sister Laura (who takes refuge from reality in her glass animals). At Amanda's insistence, Tom brings his friend Jim O'Connor to the house as a "gentleman caller" for Laura. While O'Connor is there, the horn on Laura's glass unicorn breaks, bringing her into reality, until O'Connor tells the family that he is already engaged. Laura returns to her fantasy world, while Tom abandons the family after fighting with Amanda. "Gay Deceivers".

The Glass Menagerie

A portrait of drunkenness and hopeless dreams. Regular patrons of the End of the Line Café anticipate the annual arrival of Theodore "Hickey" Hickman, but in 1912 he returns to them sober. After the patrons reveal their "pipe dreams," Hickey implores them to give up those dreams and lead productive lives. The "Iceman" is supposed to represent the "death" found in reality.

The Iceman Cometh

Set on a plantation in 1900, Hellman attempts to show that by this time any notion of antebellum Southern gentility has been destroyed by modern capitalism and industrialism. Three Hubbard siblings (Regina and her two brothers) scheme to earn vast riches at the expense of other family members, such as Regina's husband Horace and their daughter Alexandra. The title is taken from the Old Testament Song of Solomon that says that these "spoil the vines."

The Little Foxes

Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, 1786: The title character and Susanna are servants of Count Almaviva who plan to marry, but this plan is complicated by the older Marcellina who wants to wed The title character, the Count — who has made unwanted advances to Susanna —, and Don Bartolo, who has a loan that The title character has sworn he will repay before he marries. The issues are resolved with a series of complicated schemes that involve impersonating other characters, including the page Cherubino. The opera is based on a comedy by Pierre de Beaumarchais. Many of the same characters also appear in The Barber of Seville!

The Marriage of Figaro

Also called Vedanta, or "last part of the Vedas," these texts were written in Sanskrit between 900 and 500 BC. Part poetry but mainly prose, the earlier texts laid the foundation for the development of several key Hindu ideas, such as connecting the individual soul (atman) with the universal soul (Brahman). Spiritual release, or moksha, could be achieved through meditation and asceticism. The name means "to sit down close," as pupils did when a teacher recited them.

Upanishads

Consist strictly of four hymnbooks: the Rig (prayers in verse), Sama (musical melodies), Yajur (prose prayers), and Atharva (spells and incantations). Each text, though, also contains a Brahmana (interpretation), and the texts also incorporate treatises on meditation (Aranyakas) as well as the Upanishads. Written in an archaic form of Sanskrit by early Aryan invaders, possibly between 1500 and 1200 BC, the texts concentrate on sacrifices to deities, such as Indra (god of thunder), Varuna (cosmic order), and Agni (fire). The major gods Vishnu and Shiva appear as minor deities in the texts; their elevation, as well as the concept of karma, does not develop until the Upanishads.

Vedas

Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe may have preceded them as trailblazing African-American players, but the sisters have taken the game to new levels and to more people. Born in Compton, California and coached from an early age by father Richard, The elder of the pair broke through first, reaching the final of the U.S. Open in 1997. Serena won a Grand Slam before Venus did (1999 U.S. Open), but hit #1 by sweeping Wimbledon and the U.S. Opens in both 2000 and 2001. For a long time, the younger could not beat her older sister, but that changed in 2002, when she took four straight major finals against her. With her 2003 win at Wimbledon, The younger of the two now has six majors to her sister's four. On the side, both are fashion designers, while the elder also designs interiors.

Venus and Serena Williams

The second-longest-reigning monarch in British history (after Elizabeth II), she relinquished much of the remaining royal power, both to her husband Albert and to her favored prime ministers, Lord Melbourne, Robert Peel, and Benjamin Disraeli. After Albert's death in 1861, she largely went into seclusion, though she influenced the passage of the Reform Act of 1867, which doubled the number of Britons who could vote.

Victoria

This deity is the Preserver, protecting the world. When needed, he descends to Earth as an avatar, or incarnation. Nine have appeared so far: Matsya, Kurma (tortoise), Varah (boar), Narasimha (man-lion), Vamana (dwarf), Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, and Buddha. A tenth, Kalki, will appear with a flaming sword to save humans from the darkness. Some cult followers worship him as Narayana, the primal being. He is depicted as having dark blue skin, rides with the eagle Garuda, and sits on the snake Shesha. His symbols are the conch, disc, club, and lotus; his chief wives are Lakshmi and Bhu (the Earth). Kama, the god of love, may be his son.

Vishnu

Though he designed the Fagus Factory (Alfeld, Germany) and the Pan American Building (New York City), he is best known for founding the Bauhaus. Beginning in Weimar in 1919 and moving to a facility designed by him in Dessau in 1925, the Bauhaus school emphasized functionalism, the application of modern methods and materials, and the synthesis of technology and art. Its faculty included artists Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Josef Albers. He would later head Harvard's architecture department from 1938 to 1952, shifting its focus to incorporate modern design and construction techniques.

Walter Gropius

The title author has little to do with the story, except that Martha sings the title to George when she is mad at him in Act I. In fact, Albee got the title from graffiti he saw on a men's room wall. In the drama, George is a professor who married Martha, the college president's daughter, but the two dislike each other. Martha invites another couple, the instructor Nick and his wife Honey, for drinks after a party for her father. All four of them get drunk, and they end up bickering over their flawed marriages: Besides George and Martha's problems, Honey is barren, and Nick married her for her money.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Duke of Normandy from 1035, he was promised succession to the throne by Edward the Confessor, but when Edward gave the throne to Harold II in 1066, he invaded England, killing Harold and defeating the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. An able administrator, he authorized a survey of his kingdom in the 1086 Domesday Book. By that time he had replaced Anglo-Saxon nobles and clergy with Normans and other continentals.

William I (the Conqueror)

Opera by Gioacchino Rossini, Étienne de Jouy, and Hippolyte Bis, 1829: The title character is a 14th-century Swiss patriot who wishes to end Austria's domination of his country. In the first act he helps Leuthold, a fugitive, escape the Austrian governor, Gessler. In the third act, Gessler has placed his hat on a pole and ordered the men to bow to it. When The title character refuses, Gessler takes his son, Jemmy, and forces him to shoot an apple off his son's head. He succeeds, but is arrested anyway. In the fourth act, he escapes from the Austrians and his son sets their house on fire as a signal for the Swiss to rise in revolt. The opera was based on a play by Friedrich von Schiller.

William Tell

The basis for ancient Chinese philosophy and religion, the text was created between 1500 and 1000 BC, though legend has it that the dragon-emperor Fuxi derived its eight trigrams from a turtle shell. The trigrams consist of three either broken (yin) or unbroken (yang) lines, and by reading pairs of these trigrams randomly, one could learn about humans, the universe, and the meaning of life. The Qin emperor Shi Huangdi burned most scholarly books, but the text escaped because it was not seen as threatening.

Yijing