Kasan. you have to know.

la boheme

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. La bohème was based on a novel by Henry Murger and, in turn, formed the basis of the hit 1996 musical Rent by Jonathan Larson.

asturias

Guatemala; Nobel 1967): Asturias 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. Asturias 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.

loki

He's actually giant-kin, but lives with the Aesir and is Odin's blood-brother. The god of fire and trickery, his many pranks include duping Hoder into killing Balder. His children include the wolf Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent Jormungandr, Hel (the ruler of the underworld), and Sleipnir. After killing Balder he was chained to three boulders with snakes dripping poison onto him.

king arthur

"The Once and Future King," was the son of Uther Pendragon and Lady Igraine. Uther disguised himself as Igraine's husband Gorlois to sleep with her. Arthur wields the legendary sword Excalibur and rules the Britons from the castle of Camelot beside his wife, Queen Guinevere. The stories of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table are recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regnum Britanniae, works by Chrétien de Troyes, and Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, among others. The different sources disagree on various details; for instance, some sources state that Arthur received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, while in others he pulls the sword from a stone. After the Battle of Camlann, King Arthur gives Excalibur to his marshal, Sir Bedivere, and is taken to the isle of Avalon to die.

orestia

(Aeschylus, c. 458 BC) Originally a four-play cycle, only three works (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides) survive; a "satyr play" entitled Proteus has been lost. Agamemnon, the first play in the trilogy, describes the murder of Agamemnon and his concubine Cassandra by Agamemnon's adulterous wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. The Libation Bearers continues the story, describing how Agamemnon's children, Orestes and Electra, avenge their father by murdering Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. However, the Furies relentlessly pursue Orestes for his matricide, leading to the events of The Eumenides. In this third play, Orestes appeals to Athena, who organizes a trial for him (with Apollo as a defense counsel). Ultimately, when Apollo argues that the man is more important than the woman in a marriage, Orestes is acquitted, and the Furies are renamed the Eumenides, or "The Kindly Ones." The cycle has been retold numerous times in modern literature, notably by Eugene O'Neill in Mourning Becomes Electra and by Jean-Paul Sartre in The Flies.

seven against thebes

(Aeschylus, c. 467 BC) This early Greek tragedy tells the story of Oedipus's two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, who initially agreed to rule Thebes together before Eteocles seized the kingship for himself. Most of the play consists of a conversation between Eteocles, the chorus, and a spy who describes the seven captains who have arrived to besiege the seven gates of Thebes. After each man is described, Eteocles selects the warrior who will face that attacker. When the seventh attacker is revealed to be Polyneices, Eteocles sets off to confront his brother. At the conclusion of the play, it is announced that although Eteocles's forces have turned back the invaders, the brothers have slain each other. Antigone, the sister of Eteocles and Polyneices, vows to defy the laws of Thebes by giving Polyneices a proper burial.

the frogs

(Aristophanes, c. 405 BC) This comedy centers on the god Dionysus, who journeys to the underworld with his much smarter slave, Xanthias. Dionysus is unhappy with the low quality of contemporary theater, and plans to bring the playwright Euripides back from the dead. As the ferryman Charon rows Dionysus to the underworld (Xanthias is forced to walk), a chorus of the title creatures appears and repeatedly chants the phrase "Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax." Dionysus and Xanthias then have a series of misadventures, during which they alternately claim to be Heracles. Finally, the two find Euripides arguing with the playwright Aeschylus as to which is the better author. After the dramatists "weigh" their verses on a scale, and offer advice on how to save the city of Athens, Dionysus judges that it is Aeschylus who should be brought back to life.

lysistrata

(Aristophanes, c. 411 BC) The title character of this comedy is an Athenian woman who decides to end the Peloponnesian War, which was still ongoing when the play premiered in 411 BC. At the beginning of the play, Lysistrata assembles a secret "Council of Women," whose members represent many different regions of Greece. Once the women have gathered, Lysistrata reveals her proposal: all Greek women should abstain from having sex until the men agree to stop fighting. Although Lysistrata's plan draws protests from her bawdy neighbor Calonice, and from the amorous wife Myrrhine, the Spartan Lampito reluctantly supports the idea, and helps to convince the other women. As Athenian women capture the Acropolis, the female representatives from other regions return home to enlist their compatriots in the plan. The ensuing events include conflicts between a chorus of old women and a chorus of old men, and a personal plea to Myrrhine from her husband, Cinesias. Both genders suffer from sexual deprivation, but the women of Greece remain united. With the aid of a beautiful girl called Diallage, or Reconciliation, Lysistrata convinces the frenzied men to agree to an equitable peace.

the birds

(Aristophanes, c. 414 BC) At the start of this comedy, two Athenians named Peisthetaerus and Euelpides seek out Tereus, a human king who was transformed into a bird called a hoopoe (some translations refer to Tereus as "Epops," the Greek word for "hoopoe"). Peisthetaerus convinces Tereus and his fellow birds to build a city in the sky, which would allow the birds to demand sacrifices from humans, and to blockade the Olympian gods. Peisthetaerus and Euelpides eat a root that gives them wings, and aid the birds in the construction of the city Nephelokokkygia, or "Cloudcuckooland." Peisthetaerus also drives away objectionable visitors, such as a poet, an oracle-monger, and a dealer in decrees. After the messenger goddess Iris is found in the city, the residents of Cloudcuckooland demand concessions from the Olympians. On the advice of Prometheus, Peisthetaerus demands that Zeus give up his mistress Basileia, or Sovereignty, from whom "all things come." Peisthetaerus marries Basileia, and is crowned king.

the clouds

(Aristophanes, c. 423 BC) This comedy lampoons Athenian philosophers, especially Socrates and his Sophist followers, whose insubstantial, obfuscating arguments are inspired by the title goddesses. The protagonist, Strepsiades, fears that his horse-obsessed son, Pheidippides, is spending too much money. Consequently, Strepsiades wants Pheidippides to enroll in the Phrontisterion, or "Thinkery" of Socrates to learn specious arguments that can be used to avoid paying debts. Pheidippides refuses, so Strepsiades enrolls in the Thinkery himself. There, Strepsiades learns about new discoveries, such as a technique to measure how far a flea can jump. Eventually Pheidippides is also pressured into studying at the Thinkery, where he and Strepsiades are instructed by the beings Just and Unjust Discourse. Strepsiades believes that the education will enable Pheidippides to foil all creditors, but Pheidippides instead uses his new-found debating skills to justify beating up his father. In response, Strepsiades leads a mob to destroy the Thinkery.

death of a salesman

(Arthur Miller, 1949). 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.

The crucible

(Arthur Miller, 1953). 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 jew of malta

(Christopher Marlowe, c. 1589): After his massive fortune is seized by Malta's governor, Ferneze, to pay tribute to the Turks, the Jewish merchant Barabas embarks on a complex journey of revenge. Barabas uses his daughter Abigail to spark a jealous feud that leads to a duel in which the governor's son Lodowick is killed. Abigail then hides in a convent and converts to Christianity, leading Barabas and his slave Ithamore to poison all of the convent's occupants. Barabas eventually aids the Turks in conquering Malta, for which he is appointed governor, but betrays the Turks in favor of the Maltese, who kill Barabas in a boiling cauldron as they retake the island. The Jew of Malta is thought to have influenced Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

Doctor Faustus

(Christopher Marlowe, c. 1593): Two scholars named Valdes and Cornelius teach Faustus how to summon a demon, which Faustus promptly does, conjuring Mephistophilis. Faustus then signs his soul over to Lucifer, in exchange for 24 years of healthy life with Mephistophilis as his dutiful servant. Faustus constantly rejects the pleas of an angel to accept the forgiveness of God, instead traveling and gaining worldly fame. At one point, he summons the "shade" of Helen of Troy, and exclaims "was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" On the night his deal is scheduled to expire, a clock's chimes announce that Faustus is running out of time to repent. He never does, so devils appear and drag him to hell.

who's afraid of virginia woolf?

(Edward Albee, 1962). The author Virginia Woolf 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.

mourning becomes electra

(Eugene O'Neill, 1931). 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.

the icemancometh

(Eugene O'Neill, 1939). 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.

long day's journey into night

(Eugene O'Neill, 1956). 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. Prequel to a moon for the misbegotten

the baccahe

(Euripides, c. 405 BC) At the start of this tragedy, the god Dionysus arrives in Thebes to seek vengeance against his aunt Agave, who has denied his immortality, and her son Pentheus, who as King of Thebes bans the worship of Dionysus. The god first drives the women of the city mad, causing them to act as wild Maenads. He then convinces Pentheus to disguise himself in animal skins, and spy on the maddened women. However, the demented Agave mistakes Pentheus for a mountain lion, and dismembers her own son. The climax of the play occurs when Agave presents the head of Pentheus to her horrified father, Cadmus. As Agave realizes what she has done, Dionysus chastises her for her lack of respect, and foretells how Cadmus will spend his final days.

madea

(Euripides, c. 431 BC) This Euripides play retells the myth of Medea, a sorceress from Colchis who saved Jason and the Argonauts during their quest for the Golden Fleece. Set after the Argonauts' quest, the play depicts Medea's vengeance against Jason as he prepares to marry the Corinthian princess Glauce. Medea uses poisoned robes to kill Glauce and Glauce's father Creon (a different character than the Creon who appears in Sophocles's Theban plays). Not content with this, Medea seeks to hurt Jason further by killing the sons that she bore him. When Jason tries to confront Medea, she appears above the stage in a chariot pulled by dragons, and exchanges bitter words with her former lover before departing to seek refuge with King Aegeus of Athens. The play's ending is a classic example of a deus ex machina, a literary device in which plot problems are suddenly resolved by an unexpected contrivance.

madama butterfly

(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 (Madame Butterfly) 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.

william tell

(Gioacchino Rossini, Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, 1829): William Tell 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 Tell refuses, Gessler takes his son, Jemmy, and forces Tell to shoot an apple off his son's head. Tell 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.

all for love

(John Dryden, 1677): Dryden wrote that he "professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare" in this play, which retells the story of the Roman leader Mark Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. In Dryden's version of the tale, the Roman general Ventidius actively tries to separate the two lovers, and encourages Antony to believe that Cleopatra has been secretly consorting with the Roman Dolabella. Another of the central characters in Dryden's play is Antony's wife Octavia, who travels to Alexandria to convince Antony to reconcile. At the end of the play, the eunuch Alexas falsely tells Antony that Cleopatra has committed suicide. Antony falls upon his sword, and the grief-stricken Cleopatra lets herself be bitten by a poisonous snake. The dead lovers are then eulogized by Serapion, a priest of Isis.

the dutchess of malfi

(John Webster, 1613): This play is a product of the Jacobean period, in which the thrilling, macabre, and fantastic were prevalent on stage. The play follows the widowed Duchess, who loves Antonio Bologna, a good-hearted nobleman below her station. Her twin brother Ferdinand denounces her affection for Antonio out of incestuous envy. Her other brother, a Cardinal, hires the former galley-slave Bosola to spy on her. Bosola discovers the Duchess and Antonio have married (and had children), so the Cardinal sends them into exile. Ferdinand subsequently imprisons the Duchess, terrorizes her with asylum patients, and arranges for her to see statues resembling the dead bodies of her husband and children. Executioners sent by Ferdinand then kill the Duchess and her maid Cariola. Paranoia overtakes both brothers; the Cardinal kills his mistress Julia with a poisoned bible, and Ferdinand imagines he has become a werewolf. Bosola, disgusted by his own actions, tries to murder the Cardinal but mistakenly kills Antonio instead. In a climactic confrontation, Bosola, the Cardinal, and Ferdinand all kill each other, leaving the son of the Duchess and Antonio to inherit what remains.

the little foxes

(Lillian Hellman, 1939). 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: "the little foxes that spoil the vines."

A raisin in the sun

(Lorraine Hansberry, 1959). 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").

she stoops to conquer

(Oliver Goldsmith, 1773): In this enduringly popular comedy, a wealthy gentleman's son named Charles Marlow is sent to visit the country home of Mr. Hardcastle, who has a beautiful daughter named Kate. On the way, Marlow and his companion George Hastings stop at an alehouse where Kate's half-brother, Tony Lumpkin, tricks them into thinking they are miles from their destination. Tony directs the travelers to Mr. Hardcastle's house, claiming it is an inn. There, Marlow and Hastings rudely treat the Hardcastles as innkeepers, which the Hardcastles patiently endure for the sake of their friendship with Marlow's wealthy father. At the same time, Kate discovers that Marlow is timid and reserved around high-born ladies, but is rakishly charming to lower-class women. Kate therefore "stoops" to impersonating a barmaid in order to woo Marlow. Meanwhile, Mrs. Hardcastle attempts to make her niece Constance Neville marry Tony. Constance, however, is secretly engaged to Hastings, and the pair try to obtain a casket of jewels that belongs to Constance, but which Mrs. Hardcastle carefully guards. In the end, Kate wins Marlow, and Tony discovers that he is older than the Hardcastles have led him to believe. Upon discovering he is an adult, Tony refuses the arranged marriage, freeing Constance to marry Hastings.

salome

(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 Salome becomes obsessed with the prisoner's religious passion and is incensed when he ignores her advances. Later in the evening Herod orders Salome 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.

oedipus Rex

(Sophocles, c. 429 BC, also known by its translated title Oedipus the King) This tragedy tells the story of Oedipus, a man who became king of Thebes by defeating a monster called the sphinx. After a mysterious plague devastates Thebes, Oedipus sends his brother-in-law Creon to ask the Oracle at Delphi about the cause of the affliction. The Oracle attributes the plague to the fact that the murderer of Laius, the previous king of Thebes, has never been caught and punished. Oedipus then seeks information from the prophet Teiresias, who is provoked into revealing that Oedipus himself was the killer. Oedipus initially rejects this claim, but begins to have doubts after talking with his wife Jocasta, who was once married to Laius. Jocasta recalls a prophecy that Laius would be killed by his own son, but she claims that this prophecy did not come true, because Laius was murdered by highwaymen. This leads Oedipus to recall killing a man who resembled Laius, and a prophecy which had claimed that Oedipus would kill his own father, and marry his own mother. A shepherd from Mount Cithaeron reveals the awful truth: in response to the prophecy about their son, Laius and Jocasta had tried to expose the infant Oedipus in the wilderness. However, the shepherd had taken pity on the child, and sent him away to be raised in another area. Not knowing his true heritage, Oedipus eventually left home to avoid harming the people whom he believed to be his parents, but unknowingly fulfilled the prophecy by killing Laius and marrying Jocasta. Upon learning this, Jocasta commits suicide, and Oedipus blinds himself with Jocasta's brooches. Creon assumes control of Thebes as Oedipus begs to be exiled along with his daughters, Ismene and Antigone.

antigone

(Sophocles, c. 441 BC) Along with Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone is one of the three surviving "Theban plays" by Sophocles that center on the family of Oedipus. The tragedy takes place in the immediate aftermath of a battle in which Oedipus's two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, killed each other while struggling to control Thebes. The current ruler of the city, Creon, has declared that Eteocles will be given an honorable funeral, but Polyneices will be treated as a rebel and left unburied. Oedipus's daughter Antigone disobeys Creon's order, and buries her brother Polyneices against the advice of her frightened sister, Ismene. Despite the intervention of Creon's son Haemon, who is betrothed to Antigone, Creon sentences Antigone to be entombed alive. Soon after she is imprisoned, Antigone hangs herself. Haemon then commits suicide out of grief, and Creon's wife Eurydice kills herself when she learns that Haemon is dead. The once-proud Creon blames himself for the loss of his wife and son, and prays for death.

The Glass Menagerie

(Tennessee Williams, 1944). 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.

A streetcar named desire

(Tennessee Williams, 1947). 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.

The spanish tragedy

(Thomas Kyd, c. 1585): A sensational hit when it was first performed, The Spanish Tragedy pioneered and popularized the gory genre known as the revenge tragedy. The play is set in the wake of a war between Portugal and Spain, during which the Spanish soldier Don Andrea was killed by the Portuguese prince Balthazar. After Andrea's death, Balthazar was captured by two Spanish soldiers: Lorenzo, the nephew of the King of Spain; and Horatio, the capable son of the marshal Hieronimo. As the play begins, Andrea's ghost has returned to Earth along with the spirit of Revenge, to watch the events that will lead to Balthazar's death. Those events are put in motion by Andrea's former lover Bel-imperia, who falls in love with Horatio and rejects the smitten Balthazar. Lorenzo and Balthazar then conspire to kill Horatio, whose death devastates Hieronimo. Bel-imperia is imprisoned by Lorenzo to cover up the crime, but sends a letter written in her own blood to Hieronimo, exposing Lorenzo's schemes. During a climactic play-within-a-play, Hieronimo and Bel-imperia take vengeance by stabbing Lorenzo and Balthazar, and subsequently kill themselves. The Spanish Tragedy is noted for its influence on the works of Shakespeare, especially the incriminating play-within-a-play in Hamlet.

our town

(Thornton Wilder, 1938). A sentimental story that takes place in the village of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire just after the turn of the 20th century, Our Town 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.

don giovanni

(Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 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.

agnes de mille

, the niece of the film director Cecil B. DeMille and granddaughter of the economist Henry George, worked extensively with American Ballet Theater, but the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo commissioned her most famous work, Rodeo. That ballet, featuring music by Aaron Copland (possibly assisted by an uncredited Leonard Bernstein), details a love rectangle between characters known as American Cowgirl, Champion Roper, Head Wrangler, and Rancher's Daughter. Her other notable stage ballets include Three Virgins and a Devil and Fall River Legend (based on the life of Lizzie Borden). De Mille also found success in musical theater, creating a revolutionary "dream ballet" for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!.

osiris

Husband of Isis, father of Horus, and brother of Set, Osiris served as god of the underworld and protector of the dead. In addition to his role as the chief and judge of the underworld (as a result of the above-mentioned murder by Set), Osiris also served as a god of vegetation and renewal; festivals honoring his death occurred around the time of the Nile flood's retreat. Statues representing him were made of clay and grain, which would then germinate. Osiris was represented either as a green mummy, or wearing the Atef, a plumed crown.

koran

: Arabic for "recitation," it is the most sacred scripture of Islam. The Qur'an 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.

the barber of seville

: 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.

brunelleschi

A friend of Donatello, Brunelleschi 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.

confucius

A pivotal thinker from China's Spring and Autumn period, Confucius's views on proper conduct and filial piety influence China to this day. Many sayings attributed to Confucius were compiled by his disciples following his death in a text known as the Analects. Confucius put much importance on ren, the inner state which allows one to behave compassionately toward others, and on a concept called li, which can help individuals attain ren.

ymir

A primordial giant who formed in the void of Ginnungagap from fire and ice. He gave birth to the frost giants and created the primordial cow Audhumla. He was killed by Odin and his brothers, who used his body to construct most of the universe.

thor

A son of Odin and the giantess Jord, he is the god of thunder, weather, and crops. One of the most popular of the Norse gods, he travels in a chariot pulled by two goats, and wields the hammer Mjölnir. He is married to Sif, and his special nemesis is the Midgard Serpent.

nicholas nickelby

After his father dies, Nicholas Nickleby is sent to work at Dotheboys Hall by his cruel uncle Ralph. With the help of the disabled Smike, Nicholas beats the foul schoolmaster Wackford Squeers, and escapes to London. Nicholas's sister Kate works with the milliner Madame Mantalini, but must confront the attentions of the foppish Mr. Mantalini and Sir Mulberry Hawk. Nicholas finds employment in Portsmouth with the theater manager Vincent Crummles, then returns to London and works for the Cheeryble brothers. Smike dies, and Ralph commits suicide after learning that Smike was his son. Nicholas marries a woman named Madeline Bray, and Kate weds the Cheerybles' nephew, Frank.

upanishads

Also called Vedanta, or "last part of the Vedas," the Upanishads were written in Sanskrit between 900 and 500 BC. Part poetry but mainly prose, the earlier Upanishads 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 "Upanishads" means "to sit down close," as pupils did when a teacher recited them.

borges

Argentina): One-quarter English, Borges 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, Borges 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 Borges's eyesight, but in 1962 he completed the influential story collection Labyrinths.

aristotle

Aristotle was a student of Plato; in turn, Aristotle was a tutor to Alexander the Great. Many of his works come to us in the form of lectures he gave at his school, known as the Lyceum. His philosophical output includes the Nicomachean Ethics, which argues that virtues consist in a "golden mean" between two extremes; the Physics, which describes motion and change in terms of "four causes" that make a given thing what it is; and the Metaphysics, which describes the structure of reality. Aristotle's Poetics discusses the types of drama and considers an effect of tragedies known as catharsis, or the purging of bad feelings.

pei

Born in China, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1935. Though he has also designed moderate-income housing, Pei 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.

wright

Born in Wisconsin, Wright 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 Wright 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).

carmen

Carmen 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 Carmen 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.

allende

Chile): 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 Allende, 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 Allende's care for her terminally ill daughter.

mistral

Chile; Nobel 1945): The first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Mistral was actually named Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, but took her pen name from the Italian and French poets Gabriele D'Annunzio and Frédéric Mistral respectively. 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.

neruda

Chile; Nobel 1971): 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.

garcia marquez

Colombia; Nobel Prize for Literature 1982): 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 García Marquez's 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, García Marquez 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.

vedas

Consist strictly of four hymnbooks: the Rig (prayers in verse), Sama (musical melodies), Yajur (prose prayers), and Atharva (spells and incantations). Each Veda, though, also contains a Brahmana (interpretation), and the Vedas 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 Vedas 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 Vedas; their elevation, as well as the concept of karma, does not develop until the Upanishads.

set

Created in opposition to the forces of Ma'at, Set (termed Typhon by Plutarch) fought the demon Apopis each day, emerging victorious, symbolic of the struggle of forces that brought harmony. In later times, this struggle led Set to be associated with the serpent itself, and Set became the personification of violence and disorder, and the cause of all disasters. Having killed his brother Osiris, Set did battle with Osiris' son Horus, being emasculated in the fight. His cult was diminished over time, due to reaction against violence, and many of his effigies were destroyed.

marti

Cuba): Best known as a poet and a revolutionary, Martí 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. Martí was killed in a skirmish at Dos Ríos while participating in an invasion with other Cuban exiles.

david copperfield

Dickens's favorite of his own books, and the most autobiographical. After David's father dies, his mother marries the cruel Mr. Murdstone. David is sent to a school where he is tormented by the headmaster Creakle, but finds comfort in his friendships with Tommy Traddles and James Steerforth. While working in London, David befriends the optimistic but indebted Mr. Micawber. Eventually, David escapes his grim warehouse job by walking to Dover. There, he finds his great-aunt Betsey Trotwood, who arranges for David to be educated by the lawyer Mr. Wickfield. David keeps in touch with his old nurse Clara Peggotty, whose relative "Little Em'ly" is seduced and abandoned by David's former friend Steerforth. Youthful infatuation causes David to wed the flighty Dora Spenlow, who eventually dies. After helping to extricate Mr. Wickfield from the schemes of the "humble" clerk Uriah Heep, David marries Mr. Wickfield's daughter Agnes. Throughout the story, David progresses in the literary world, ultimately becoming a successful novelist.

the marriage of figgaro

Figaro and Susanna are servants of Count Almaviva who plan to marry, but this plan is complicated by the older Marcellina who wants to wed Figaro, the Count — who has made unwanted advances to Susanna —, and Don Bartolo, who has a loan that Figaro 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. Be careful: Many of the same characters also appear in The Barber of Seville!

book of mormon

Published in 1830 by the founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith. Mormons believe that the prophet Moroni revealed the location of the Book of Mormon 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.

Bhagavad Gita

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 Bhagavad-Gita 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.

cat on a hot tin roof

Tennessee Williams, 1955). 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.

odin

The "All-Father," he is the leader of the Aesir, the principal group of Norse gods. He is a god of war, death, wisdom, poetry, and knowledge, and rides the eight-legged horse Sleipnir. He hung himself for nine days on the world-tree Yggsdrasil, pierced by his own spear, to gain knowledge, and traded one of his eyes for a drink from Mimir's well to gain wisdom.

a christmas carol

The cold-hearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley. Marley's ghost, who wears heavy chains made of cash boxes and other symbols of greed, tells Scrooge to expect the arrival of three spirits. During a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past, Scrooge is shown a holiday party given by his former employer Mr. Fezziwig, and is taken back to the moment when his fiancée Belle left him on account of his avarice. The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to the homes of his nephew Fred and his clerk Bob Cratchit, whose son Tiny Tim is near death. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge the grave of an unloved man—Scrooge himself. Scrooge has a change of heart, celebrates Christmas, and becomes a benefactor to the Cratchit family, preventing Tiny Tim from dying.

freya

The daughter of Njord and twin sister of Frey, she is also a Vanir hostage living with the Aesir. The goddess of love, passion, and human fertility, her possessions include a cloak that allows her to turn into a falcon, and the necklace Brisingamen. She travels in a chariot drawn by two cats.

balder

The fairest of the Aesir, he is the god of light, joy, and beauty. He dreamed of his own death, so Frigga extracted promises from everything not to harm Balder, but she skipped mistletoe. Loki tricked Balder's blind brother Hoder into killing him with a spear of mistletoe.

horus

The god of the sky and light and the son of Isis and Osiris. In some myths, he was the brother of Set, and son of Ra. His mother impregnated herself by the dead Osiris, then hid Horus. When he was grown, he avenged his father's death, driving away Set. In the battle, he lost his eye, but regained it thanks to the god Thoth. Thus Horus came to rule over the earth. He was known to have two faces, that of the falcon and that of a child, Harpocrates.

norns

The goddesses of destiny, represented as the three sisters Urd (or Wyrd), Verdandi (or Verthandi), and Skuld. The counterparts of the Greek Fates, they tend the Well of Fate at the roots of Yggdrasil.

great expectations

The narrator Philip Pirrip, who is nicknamed "Pip," is brought up by his sister and her kind husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery. While visiting a churchyard, Pip meets the escaped convict Abel Magwitch, and renders him aid. Later, Pip is hired to "play" with a girl named Estella at Satis House, whose owner Miss Havisham was spurned on her wedding day and has worn a wedding dress ever since. When the lawyer Mr. Jaggers reveals that a mysterious benefactor will fund Pip's education, Pip assumes that Miss Havisham is making him a "gentleman" so that he can marry Estella. Instead, Estella marries the wealthy Bentley Drummle, who mistreats her. Pip discovers that his benefactor was actually the convict Magwitch, and tries to help Magwitch flee England with the help of Pip's friends Startop and Herbert Pocket. However, the escape is foiled by Compeyson, the man who jilted Miss Havisham. Pip's great expectations are dashed, but he becomes a better person, and is finally reunited with the widowed Estella. Dickens modified the novel's conclusion at the suggestion of the author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who objected to an ending in which Estella weds another man.

oliver twist

The orphan Oliver is brought up in a workhouse, where he horrifies the beadle Mr. Bumble by asking for more food. Oliver is then apprenticed to the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry. After fighting with the bully Noah Claypole, Oliver runs away to London. On the road he meets the pickpocket Jack Dawkins, known as the "Artful Dodger," who leads him to the den of the criminal Fagin. A kindly gentleman named Mr. Brownlow temporarily rescues Oliver, but he is returned to Fagin by the cruel Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. During an attempt to rob a house, Oliver is shot. He is tended by an occupant of the house named Rose Maylie, who eventually learns that Oliver is being plotted against by his villainous half-brother, Monks. The novel ends happily, as Oliver's chief enemies die or emigrate, and he is left in the care of Mr. Brownlow and Rose, who is revealed to be his aunt.

frey

The son of Njord, and twin brother of Freya. He is one of the Vanir, a second group of Norse gods, but lives with the Aesir as a hostage. The god of fertility, horses, sun, and rain, his possessions include the magic ship Skidbladnir. He travels in a chariot drawn by the golden boar Gullinbursti, and had to give away his magic sword to win the hand of the giantess Gerda.

saarinen

The son of architect Eliel Saarinen, Eero 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. Saarinen 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.

hiemdall

The son of nine sisters, he is the god of light and guardians. He guards Bifrost, the rainbow bridge into Asgard. His senses are so sharp, he can see 100 miles by night or day and hear grass growing. He will call the Aesir into battle at Ragnarok with his horn Gjall (or Gjallerhorn).

frigg

The wife of Odin, and mother by him of Balder, Hoder, Hermod, and Tyr. She is the goddess of the sky, marriage, and motherhood, and often works at her loom spinning clouds.

gropius

Though Gropius 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 Gropius-designed facility 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. Gropius would later head Harvard's architecture department from 1938 to 1952, shifting its focus to incorporate modern design and construction techniques.

Socrates

We have no writings from Socrates's own hand, and know about him largely from the dialogues of his student Plato. Proclaiming his own ignorance of all things, Socrates went around Athens engaging in question-and-answer sessions to search for truths or draw out contradictions (the "Socratic method"). The Athenian state disapproved of his conduct; he was put on trial for corrupting the city's youth, and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. Socrates' trial, imprisonment, and death are recounted in Plato's Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, respectively.

wren

When fire destroyed much of London in 1666, Wren 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."

gehry

Winner of the 1989 Pritzker Prize, Gehry 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.) Gehry 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; the Gehry Collection consists of chairs named for hockey terms (e.g. Cross Check and Power Play).

bellerophon

a demigod son of Poseidon. He rejected the advances of Queen Stheneboea, who then falsely accused him of assault. King Iobates refused to directly murder a guest, so he instead sent Bellerophon on a perilous quest to defeat the Chimera, a fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, body of a goat, and tail of a snake. To aid in his quest, Athena visited Bellerophon in a dream and gave him a golden bridle with which he tamed the flying horse Pegasus. Bellerophon rode Pegasus up to the lair of the Chimera and threw a spear tipped with a block of lead into its mouth; the monster's breath melted the lead, which suffocated it. Bellerophon's arrogance, or hubris, grew so much that he attempted to ride Pegasus up to Mount Olympus and live among the gods. Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, and Bellerophon fell and was blinded from his landing. He lived the rest of his life wandering the land in misery.

odysseus

a king of Ithaca and one of the Greek leaders during the Trojan War. Odysseus originally tried to avoid the war by pretending to be insane, but was exposed when Palamedes put his son Telemachus in front of his plow. During the war, Odysseus showcased his cunning by proposing the idea for the Trojan Horse. Odysseus's ten-year journey home from the war is the subject of Homer's Odyssey. He escaped and blinded the cyclops Polyphemus, foiled the enchantments of the sorceress Circe, was forced to live with the sea nymph Calypso for seven years, and much more. When Odysseus arrived back in Ithaca, he found that his loyal wife Penelope was being harassed by rowdy suitors who believed him to be dead. Odysseus disguised himself as a beggar, and when Penelope proposed an archery contest among the suitors, he revealed his identity and killed them. After Odysseus convinces Penelope that he truly is her husband, they happily reunite.

ajax

a massive and powerful Greek warrior during the Trojan War. Ajax fought with a massive shield made of cow-hide and bronze, which he used to protect his half-brother Teucer, a potent archer. Ajax fought the premier Trojan warrior, Hector, and wounded him, but the match was called a draw and Ajax gave Hector a purple sash in exchange for Hector's sword. Ajax competed with Odysseus for the armor of Achilles after his death, but the armor was awarded to Odysseus. In a fit of rage and insanity, Ajax slaughtered a herd of sheep, thinking they were the Greek leaders who had ruled against him. When Ajax came to his senses and realized what he had done, he committed suicide in shame.

atlanta

abandoned on a mountain as a baby because her father wanted a son. She was raised by bears, which helped her become one of the greatest and fastest hunters. Atalanta joined the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, a giant wild boar that was ravaging the land. Atalanta drew first blood on the boar, and after it was killed, the leader of the hunt, Meleager, awarded its hide to her. After the hunt, Atlanta was recognized by her father, who wanted to arrange a marriage for her. A prophecy had foretold Atalanta's doom if she married, so she agreed to only marry the man who could beat her in a race; all losers were killed. One suitor, Melanion, enlisted the help of Aphrodite, who gave him three golden apples which he used to distract Atalanta during the race and win the contest and her hand in marriage. After Atalanta and Melanion had sex in a temple of Zeus, the gods turned them into lions as punishment for their disrespect.

brooks

became the first African-American person to win a Pulitzer in 1950 for her poetry collection Annie Allen. Many of her works reflect her experiences in Bronzeville, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side that became a center of African-American life during the Great Migration. Her best-known poem, "We Real Cool," is set at the Golden Shovel and consists of three-word sentences starting with "We," such as "We / Lurk late" and "We / Jazz June." Though primarily a poet, Brooks also wrote the novel Maud Martha.

billy the kid

by Aaron Copland. Choreographed by Eugene Loring, this ballet depicts episodes in the life of the title Old West outlaw. Early in the ballet, Billy's mother is accidentally killed in a gunfight; Billy then stabs the man who killed her. Sections from the ballet include "Card Game at Night" and a "Gun Battle" that features percussion imitating the title shootout. At the end of the ballet, when Billy is resting in the desert, a posse led by Pat Garrett finds and kills him. The story of Billy's life is bookended at the beginning and end by a section called "The Open Prairie," which depicts settlers moving west. The ballet makes extensive use of cowboy songs, such as "The Old Chisholm Trail" and "Goodbye Old Paint" in its depiction of a frontier town, and features a "Jarabe," a Mexican dance in 5/8 time.

Appalachian Spring

by Aaron Copland. Copland had several working names for Appalachian Spring while composing it, including House of Victory and Ballet for Martha. The latter name refers to its choreographer, Martha Graham, who took its ultimate title from a line in Hart Crane's poem "The Bridge." Graham's ballet depicts a group of pioneers in Pennsylvania — including a newlywed couple — building a farmhouse and encountering a Revivalist preacher and his flock. The ballet's original set was designed by Graham's frequent collaborator Isamu Noguchi. Because Appalachian Spring was first performed in the Library of Congress, Copland was forced to limit the accompanying ensemble to just thirteen musicians. The best-known section of the ballet by far is Copland's use of the traditional Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" in the penultimate section of the suite; the full ballet contains several more movements based on variations on the hymn.

campbells soup can

by Andy Warhol. Pop Art parodies (or perhaps reflects) a world in which celebrities, brand names, and media images have replaced the sacred; Warhol's series of Campbell's Soup paintings may be the best illustration of this. Like the object itself, the paintings were often done by the mass-produceable form of serigraphy (silk screening). Also like the subject, the Warhol soup can painting existed in many varieties, with different types of soup or numbers of cans; painting 32 or 100 or 200 identical cans further emphasized the aspect of mass production in the work. The same approach underlies Warhol's familiar series of prints of Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and other pop culture figures.

the creation of the world

by Darius Milhaud. A trip to the U.S. inspired Milhaud to write The Creation of the World in 1922. Enchanted by the jazz bands Milhaud heard in Harlem, the ballet shows a heavy influence of jazz and blues, as well as traditional African rhythms; Milhaud omitted violas, substituting an alto saxophone. Choreographed by Jean Börlin and using a set designed by Cubist artist Ferdinand Leger, the ballet aims to depict the beginning of creation according to African tradition: the creator gods Mzame, Mbere, and Nkwa appear out of a seemingly empty void to create animals, plants, and then the first man and woman. The latter then perform a routine based on popular Dixieland dances and conclude the ballet in the tableau "The Man and the Woman Kiss."

nighthawks

by Edward Hopper. As is often the case with his works, Hopper uses a realistic approach (including such details as the fluorescent light of the diner, the coffee pots, and the Phillies cigar sign atop the diner) to convey a sense of a loneliness and isolation, even going so far as to depict the corner store without a door connecting to the larger world. Hopper's wife Jo served as the model for the woman at the bar. Nighthawks is housed at the Art Institute of Chicago.

american gothic

by Grant Wood. Wood painted his most famous work after a visit to Eldon, Iowa, when he saw a Carpenter Gothic-style house with a distinctive Gothic window in its gable. Upon returning to his studio, he used his sister Nan and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby, as the models for the two figures. The pitchfork and the clothing were more typical of 19th-century farmers than contemporary ones. American Gothic is among the most familiar regionalist paintings, and it is said to be the most parodied of all paintings. It hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it was submitted for a competition by Wood upon its completion in 1930 (Wood won a bronze medal and a $300 prize).

the firebird

by Igor Stravinsky. Choreographed by Michel Fokine, The Firebird was the first of several collaborations between Stravinsky and Ballets Russes director Sergei Diaghilev. Prince Ivan, the ballet's protagonist, captures the mythical Firebird, who pledges a feather to Ivan in exchange for her freedom. Ivan later stumbles upon thirteen princesses performing the "Dance of the Golden Apples." Ivan follows them back to the castle of Kashchei the Immortal, who has enchanted and imprisoned them. Kashchei, whose magic is represented by a recurring descending chromatic motif, sends bewitched monsters to attack Ivan. Ivan uses the feather to summon the Firebird, who uses her magic to make the monsters perform an "Infernal Dance" before lulling them to sleep with a "Berceuse." While the monsters sleep, Ivan discovers the egg that preserves Kashchei's power inside a tree trunk and destroys it, breaking Kashchei's spell. Ivan frees the princesses, marrying one of them in the ballet's 7/4-time finale. Stravinsky created three versions of the ballet suite for a smaller orchestra, which were published in 1911, 1919, and 1945.

the creatures of prometheus

by Ludwig van Beethoven. Choreographer Salvatore Viganò asked Beethoven to write the music for The Creatures of Prometheus. In the ballet, two statues come to life; Prometheus then takes them to Parnassus and exposes them to "the passions of human existence." They learn music from Orpheus, tragedy and comedy from the Muses, and dance from Pan and Bacchus. The ballet's overture, like Beethoven's First Symphony, begins with dissonant chords giving way into a lilting melody. Its finale contains a theme Beethoven would use in his "Eroica" Symphony (No. 3) and his Op. 35, the Eroica Variations for piano.

daphinis and chloe

by Maurice Ravel. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev and choreographed by Michel Fokine, Daphnis and Chloe is based on the only surviving work by the Greek author Longus. The ballet starts in a sacred grotto, where Daphnis, Chloe, and other youths arrive to give an offering to three statues of the Nymphs. When the cowherd Dorcon challenges Daphnis to a dance contest for a kiss from Chloe, Dorcon is humiliated. A group of pirates abduct Chloe and take her to their island, where she is forced to dance for their leader, Bryaxis. The god Pan saves Chloe; after reuniting her with Daphnis, Pan is reminded of his own love for the nymph Syrinx. Daphnis and Chloe then reenact Pan's courtship of Syrinx. The rest of the company joins in a bacchanalian "Danse générale" featuring a wordless chorus. Ravel reworked the music from Daphnis and Chloe into two suites often performed in the concert hall.

guernica

by Pablo Picasso. Guernica was a Basque town bombed by the Germans during the Spanish Civil War in April 1937. Picasso had already been commissioned to paint a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the World's Fair, and he completed his massive, black, white, and grey anti-war mural by early June 1937. Picasso's Cubist approach to portraying the figures adds to the sense of destruction and chaos. Guernica was in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York until 1981, when it was returned to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Spain.

broadway boogie woogie

by Piet Mondrian. While Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and other Cubist paintings represent an extension of Paul Cézanne's division-of-space approach to the canvas, Mondrian's De Stijl works are a still further abstraction, such that the canvas is often divided up into rectangular "tile patterns," as in Composition with Red Blue and Yellow. The painting simultaneously echoes the bright lights of a marquee, resembles a pattern of streets as seen from above, and creates a feeling of vitality and vibrancy, not unlike the music itself. This work can also be found at the MOMA.

the night watch

by Rembrandt van Rijn. The centerpiece of the collection of the Netherlands' Rijksmuseum, this painting depicts a schutterij, a type of civic guard common in Dutch Golden Age cities. The militia company is led by Frans Banning Cocq, who is depicted in black with a red sash, and his lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, dressed in yellow. Other standout figures in the painting include a small woman in a yellow dress who carries a dead chicken, a symbol of the militia company. The painting is enormous, measuring nearly 12 feet high and 14 feet wide; it was even wider before it was cut down in the 18th century to fit in the Amsterdam Town Hall.

the persistance of memory

by Salvador Dalí. First shown in 1931, The Persistence of Memory is probably the most famous surrealist painting. The landscape of the scene echoes the area around Portlligat, Dalí's home. The ants, flies, clocks, and the Portlligat landscape are motifs in many other Dalí paintings, and the trompe l'oeil depiction of figures is typical of his works. It currently belongs to the MOMA; its 1951 companion piece, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, hangs at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

fosse

came to prominence in the 1953 film Kiss Me Kate. While he and dance partner Carol Haney only had small roles, the dance that Fosse choreographed for them in the number "From This Moment On" launched Fosse's career. Fosse's unique style, featuring turned-in knees, rolled shoulders, sideways movement, and "jazz hands," found its greatest expression on Broadway, where he choreographed the musicals The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, Redhead, Sweet Charity, Pippin, and Chicago. Many of his works featured his wife Gwen Verdon, who won four Tonys under his choreography or direction. Fosse also directed the films Cabaret and All That Jazz, winning an Oscar for Cabaret. Many commentators have described his cameo as The Snake in a 1974 film adaptation of The Little Prince as a forerunner to the dance style of Michael Jackson.

isis

daughter of Geb and Nut, protected love, motherhood, and fate in the Egyptian mythos. Many of her roles are similar to those of the goddess Hathor, but she is often equated with the Greek Demeter. Her powers were gained through tricking the god Ra. By placing a snake in his path, which poisoned him, she forced him to give some power to her before she would cure him.

To be or not to be

delivered by Hamlet in act III, scene 1. The scene opens with King Claudius conversing with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about the cause of Hamlet's melancholy. To determine if Hamlet's state is due to love for Ophelia, Claudius and Polonius (Ophelia's father), ask Ophelia to speak with Hamlet while they listen in. Hamlet subsequently enters, delivering one of the most famous soliloquies in all of literature: Hamlet goes on to refer to death as the "undiscovered country," before noting that due to the unknown "ills" of death, "conscience does make cowards of us all."

caravaggio

full name Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) was an Italian painter who developed a style of painting involving chiaroscuro, or stark contrast between darkness and vibrant light, that was known as tenebrism. One of Caravaggio's best-known paintings is The Calling of Saint Matthew, in which Christ, who is at the right, points at a group of men sitting at a table illuminated by a shaft of light; scholars have debated whether a bearded man at the table is pointing at himself or at the young man sitting next to him. Caravaggio's Amor Vincit Omnia (meaning "Love Conquers All") shows a naked Cupid trampling musical instruments and a set of armor. Caravaggio led a violent life; he was forced to flee Rome after being sentenced to death for murder. Caravaggio was greatly influential during and after his life; artists who imitated or were influenced by his style were known as "Caravaggisti."

james baldwin

grew up in Harlem, which he portrayed in his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. That novel is about the teenage John Grimes and his fanatically religious stepfather Gabriel. In Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room, an American named David has an affair with the title Italian bartender. His novel If Beale Street Could Talk, about the love between Tish and a man named Fonny who has been falsely accused of rape, was made into a 2018 movie directed by Barry Jenkins. Baldwin also wrote several essays, including an examination of race and religion in The Fire Next Time. His essay collection Notes of a Native Son begins with "Everybody's Protest Novel," which is critical of Uncle Tom's Cabin and Native Son.

sir gawain

is a Knight of the Round Table and the son of Morgause and King Lot of Orkney, making him the nephew of King Arthur. He is the hero of the Pearl Poet's 14th-century romantic epic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which Gawain's loyalty and resolve are tested by the title Green Knight (secretly Lord Bertilak), who survives his beheading at the hands of Gawain and returns a year later to return the favor. Gawain's brothers Gareth and Gaheris are killed during Lancelot's rescue of Queen Guinevere, sending Gawain into a frenzy.

merlin

is a powerful wizard who serves as Arthur's chief advisor. When Merlin was a child, King Vortigern was told that the boy's blood was necessary to keep his tower from constantly collapsing; however, Merlin identified a pool beneath the tower in which two dragons fought as the source of the instability. Some sources credit Merlin with constructing the Round Table as well as Stonehenge. Merlin's primary apprentice is the sorceress Morgan le Fay, Arthur's half-sister on his mother's side. Some sources have Merlin wind up trapped in an enchanted tomb (possibly in a cave, possibly in a tree) by a figure identified as Vivien or Nimue (the Lady of the Lake). In other tales, Merlin dies and is buried in the legendary forest Brocéliande.

lao tzu

is a quasi-mythical thinker of the Taoist tradition, to whom the pivotal Tao te Ching is attributed. Concepts associated with him include that of the Tao, or "the way," and wu wei, or a life of non-action in accordance with the Tao. In later centuries, Lao Tzu was accorded godlike status as one of the Three Pure Ones of Taoism, and is frequently depicted as an old man with a donkey. To Lao Tzu is attributed the quote "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

hansberry

is best known for her play A Raisin in the Sun. That play is about the Younger family, who debate how to use $10,000 in life insurance money. Walter wants to invest the money in a liquor store, while his mother Mama wants to buy a house in the white neighborhood Clybourne Park. Mama's daughter Beneatha wants to spend the money on medical school and, unlike the other members of the family, explores her African heritage. Hansberry's other works include the play The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window and the autobiography To Be Young, Gifted and Black.

heracles

is often considered the greatest of the Greek heroes. He was the son of Alcmene and Zeus, which earned him the lifelong enmity of Zeus's wife Hera. Hera struck Heracles with a temporary madness so that he killed his wife Megara and their children. As penance, Heracles served King Eurystheus for ten years and completed twelve labors. Some of his most famous labors were slaying the Nemean Lion, whose skin was impenetrable; slaying the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra, which would sprout new heads when one was cut off; redirecting two rivers to clean the massive Augean stables in one day; and capturing Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld. Heracles was killed when the centaur Nessus tricked Heracles's wife Deianira into giving him a poisoned shirt. After his death, Heracles was deified and married the goddess of youth, Hebe.

guinevere

is the daughter of Leodegrance and the wife of King Arthur. In one story, Guinevere is abducted by Meleagant (or Melwas), a king of Somerset, and rescued by Lancelot, beginning an illicit affair between the two. After the affair is revealed to Arthur (in some sources by Mordred, in others by Agravain), Arthur orders her to be burned at the stake; she is rescued from that fate by Lancelot in a battle that results in the deaths of Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris and the permanent exile of Lancelot. Some sources say that Guinevere spent her final days hiding in the Tower of London or in a nearby convent.

sir lancelot

is the foremost among the Knights of the Round Table, an expert swordsman and jouster who is the primary figure of the Vulgate Cycle. The son of King Ban of Benwick, Lancelot was raised by the Lady of the Lake, which earned him the epithet "du Lac" or "of the Lake." Another of his epithets is "Knight of the Cart," which he earned for riding in a dwarf's cart while searching for Guinevere after she was kidnapped. Aside from his adulterous affair with Queen Guinevere, Lancelot is known for fathering Sir Galahad with Elaine of Corbenic, who had tricked Lancelot into sleeping with her by disguising herself as Guinevere. After his betrayal of Arthur was revealed, Lancelot fled to France and was therefore not present during the Battle of Camlann.

diomedes

king of Argos and a great Greek warrior, second only to Achilles in martial prowess during the Trojan War. Early in life, Diomedes's father Tydeus, who was a member of the Seven Against Thebes, was killed during a rebellion against the city. Diomedes and the other Epigoni (the sons of the Seven) avenged their fathers by sacking and plundering Thebes. During the Trojan War, Diomedes and Odysseus participated in a daring night raid on the Trojan camp. One Trojan warrior named Glaucus challenged Diomedes to single combat, but after they realized that their grandfathers had been friends, they swapped armor instead of fighting. Diomedes was the only mortal other than Heracles to fight and injure gods, wounding both Ares and Aphrodite. After the war, Diomedes founded many cities in Italy.

tharp

made her mark in the mid-1970s with the "crossover ballets" Deuce Coupe (performed by the Joffrey Ballet to music by The Beach Boys) and Push Comes to Shove (starring Mikhail Baryshnikov), both marked by a fusion of diverse musical and dance styles. She found success on Broadway with the "jukebox musical" Movin' Out, set to the catalog of Billy Joel; she subsequently built musicals around the songs of Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra. She created the children's ballet The Princess and the Goblin and collaborated with director Milos Forman on the Hollywood films Hair, Ragtime, and Amadeus.

robbins

probably best known for his work with Leonard Bernstein. He broke through as a choreographer with an experimental ballet about three sailors on leave in New York City, Fancy Free, which he then helped rework into the hit 1944 musical On the Town. Known for being temperamental and difficult to work with, he conceived, choreographed, and directed the 1957 original production of West Side Story and won an Oscar for co-directing the 1961 film version (despite quitting early in the process due to creative differences). He also choreographed and directed the original production of Fiddler on the Roof. He acted as an uncredited "show doctor," rescuing several floundering Broadway shows, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Funny Girl.

hurston

set many of her works in her hometown of Eatonville, Florida. Her best-known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is about Janie Crawford, whose sexual awakening is compared to the blossoming of a pear tree. Janie successively marries Logan Killicks, Jody Starks, and Tea Cake; when Tea Cake attacks her after being bitten by a rabid dog during a hurricane, she shoots him. Hurston was also a prominent anthropologist, collecting African-American folklore in books like Mules and Men. Her work was relatively unknown until 1975, when Alice Walker published the article "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston."

When I am Laid in Earth

the final aria sung by the Carthaginian queen Dido in Act III of Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas (1683). Dido, who has fallen in love with the Trojan prince Aeneas, is heartbroken when she learns that he is planning to leave because of what he believes in an order from Mercury. Dido sings this aria as she is dying of grief following Aeneas's departure, after a recitative in which she asks for "Thy hand, Belinda" (her sister and handmaiden). In her aria, she urges "Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate." The aria uses a chromatic "lament bass," a common feature in Baroque opera involving a descent from tonic to dominant in a minor key, first introduced by Claudio Monteverdi.

achielles

the greatest Greek warrior during the Trojan War. He was the son of King Peleus and the Nereid Thetis, who dipped him in the River Styx as a child to make his body invulnerable, except for the heel by which she held him. Thetis tried to keep Achilles out of the Trojan War by disguising him as a girl on the island of Skyros, but his trickery was exposed by Odysseus. Achilles refused to continue fighting in the Trojan War after the Greek commander, Agamemnon, seized his concubine Briseis. As the Trojans start to gain the upper hand, Achilles's friend (and, by many interpretations, lover) Patroclus donned Achilles's armor and led his Myrmidon warriors into battle. After Patroclus was killed by the Trojans' best warrior, Hector, Achilles flew into a berserk rage and massacred many of the remaining Trojans, including Hector. Achilles was eventually killed by the Trojan prince Paris, who shot an arrow into Achilles's vulnerable heel.

jason

the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos who had been usurped by Jason's uncle Pelias. In an attempt to kill Jason, Pelias offered him the throne if he completed a quest to Colchis and retrieved the Golden Fleece. Jason assembled a crew of heroes, named the Argonauts after their ship, the Argo, for the quest. When they arrived in Colchis, King Aeëtes agreed to give Jason the Fleece if he performed a series of daring tasks. With the help of Aeëtes's daughter, the sorceress Medea, Jason yoked the fire-breathing Bulls of Colchis, plowed a field and sowed it with dragon's teeth, defeated the Spartoi warriors that sprung from the teeth, and finally overcame the dragon guarding the fleece. When Jason and Medea returned to Iolcos, they murdered Pelias and were exiled to Corinth. Jason abandoned Medea for the Corinthian princess Glauce, and in revenge, Medea killed Glauce as well as her own children with Jason. For breaking his marriage vow, Jason lost favor with Hera and died unhappy.

Balachine

trained in his native Georgia (the country) and Russia and briefly worked with Sergei Diaghilev at the Ballets Russes in Paris before being invited by impresario Lincoln Kirstein to the United States, where the two co-founded the New York City Ballet (NYCB) and its associated School of American Ballet. As artistic director of NYCB, Balanchine began the tradition of annually staging The Nutcracker at Christmas. One of his four wives — all dancers — was the company's first major star, Native American prima ballerina Maria Tallchief. He collaborated with composer Igor Stravinsky and visual artist Isamu Noguchi on the 30-minute ballet Orpheus.

vermeer

was a Dutch painter who lived and worked in the city of Delft, which he depicted in his 1660 work View of Delft—one of the earliest prominent examples of a cityscape in painting. Only 34 recognized works by Vermeer have survived to the modern day. Of these, likely the best-known is Girl With a Pearl Earring, which shows a young woman in a blue and gold turban looking back over her left shoulder, highlighting the title piece of jewelry; the painting inspired a novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier. Vermeer's The Music Lesson shows a young girl with her back to the viewer playing a virginal, as a man standing next to her sings. Vermeer's works have been the subject of theories advanced by artists and scholars, including British painter David Hockney, that claim Vermeer used a camera obscura to assist in painting his works.

rubens

was a Flemish painter who also served as a diplomat; his travels on diplomatic affairs allowed him to study art held in many different areas of Europe. Rubens worked in nearly all major genres of painting of his time, including portraits (such as his numerous depictions of his second wife, Helena Fourment), biblical scenes (such as his 1614 Descent from the Cross, part of a triptych), mythological works (such as his The Origin of the Milky Way, a scene also painted by Tintoretto), and various landscapes. Rubens's Marie de' Medici cycle is a set of 24 portraits and highly allegorical works showing events from the life of Marie de' Medici, who was the queen of France, wife of Henry IV, and mother of Louis XIII; the cycle includes The Coronation in Saint-Denis and The Triumph of Truth. Rubens is known for his many depictions of the nude female body in a full-figured, fleshy state.

hughes

was a leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance. His poems "I, Too" and "Let America Be America Again" address America's racist history and the feelings of exclusion it causes. His poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" invokes world rivers like the Euphrates and the Congo and repeats the line "My soul has grown deep like the rivers," while his poem "The Weary Blues" describes a blues performance on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. He also wrote the poem "Harlem," which asks "What happens to a dream deferred?" and which inspired the title of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.

ailey

was a pioneering African-American choreographer. He originally danced in the Horton Dance Company run by his mentor Lester Horton. After Horton's unexpected death in 1953, Ailey took over as its artistic director. In 1958 he formed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City. His best-known work, Revelations, was based on his upbringing in Texas and is divided into three parts, titled "Pilgrim of Sorrow," "Take Me to the Water," and "Move Members, Move." "Move Members, Move" emphasizes gospel music, including the traditional spiritual "Sinner Man," and concludes with the number "Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham," which recreates a joyous church service. partnered with judith jameison

theseus

was a prince of Athens who was described as both the son of King Aegeus and the son of Poseidon. He was raised by his mother Aethra in Troezen, then as a young man took a land journey back to Athens, during which he defeated six foes, including the bandits Sinis, Sciron, and Procrustes. After Theseus was sent by Medea to kill the Marathonian Bull, he voluntarily went to Crete to combat the Minotaur, a bull-headed monster who devoured the Athenian tributes demanded every nine years by King Minos. Minos's daughter Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of string to help him navigate the Labyrinth, and he successfully slew the Minotaur. Theseus escaped with Ariadne, but later abandoned her on the island of Naxos. On the way back to Athens, Theseus forgot to replace the black sails on his ship with white sails, which led his father King Aegeus to commit suicide because he believed Theseus had been killed.

Michel Fokine

was accepted to the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, Russia, at age nine, eventually becoming a teacher there. He choreographed a four-minute ballet for Anna Pavlova called The Dying Swan, set to "The Swan" from The Carnival of the Animals (the title comes from a Tennyson poem entitled "The Dying Swan"). He mentored Vaslav Nijinsky and featured him in early works like Les Sylphides, a ballet based on the music of Frédéric Chopin. After Sergei Diaghilev hired Fokine to work for the Ballets Russes in Paris, Fokine showcased Nijinsky's talents in several ballets based on the work of famous composers, such as Scheherazade, The Firebird, Petrushka, Daphnis et Chloé, and The Spirit of the Rose. However, once Nijinsky turned to choreography Fokine quit the Ballets Russes, only returning after Nijinsky's dismissal.

wheatly

was born in Africa and brought to the United States as a slave in 1761; Wheatley was her slave name. She was freed in the 1770s shortly after the release of her collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" says that "mercy" brought her from her "Pagan land" and taught her "benighted soul" about God and Christian redemption. She praised George Washington in her poem "To His Excellency General Washington."

nijinsky

was known as the greatest male dancer of his era, but what he really wanted to do was choreograph. His boss at the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, gave him the opportunity in 1912 with The Afternoon of a Faun, set to the music of Claude Debussy, and a year later a riot broke out at the premiere of another ballet he choreographed, Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. (The exact cause of the riot is unclear.) In 1919 Nijinsky was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He never danced again in public, and spent much of the rest of his life in various asylums and institutions.

morrison

was the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize in Literature and won a Pulitzer for her novel Beloved. Beloved is about Sethe, a slave who escaped from Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky to 124 Bluestone Road in Cincinnati. Sethe is haunted by the ghost of Beloved, a daughter she killed to prevent her from being returned to slavery. Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, is about Pecola Breedlove, a Black foster child who considers herself ugly and wishes she had blue eyes. Morrison's other acclaimed novels include Song of Solomon, about the life of Macon Dead III, who is nicknamed "Milkman" because he is breastfed by his mother for a long time.

martha graham

was the first dancer invited to perform at the White House. As a choreographer, she developed the "Graham technique" that creates dramatic tension through "contraction" and "release" of major muscles. Her first major success was her 1958 concert-length ballet Clytemnestra, one of four collaborations with composer Halim Ed-Dabh. She performed the title role in Clytemnestra with her namesake dance company, whose dancers included Merce Cunningham and her husband, Erick Hawkins, both of whom went on to become choreographers in their own right. Hawkins danced the male lead in Appalachian Spring, a ballet with "an American theme" that Graham commissioned from Aaron Copland.

perseus

was the son of Danaë and Zeus. Perseus's grandfather, King Acrisius of Argos, had heard a prophecy that his grandson would kill him, so he banished Danaë and Perseus by setting them adrift in a chest on the ocean. Perseus grew up on Seriphos, whose king Polydectes resolved to marry Danaë unless Perseus could bring him the head of the gorgon Medusa, a monstrous woman with snakes for hair and a petrifying gaze. After securing advice from three sisters called the Graeae, Perseus located Medusa, and using Hermes's winged sandals, Hades's Helm of Invisibility, and a mirrored shield from Athena, he was able to behead her. On his way back to Seriphos, Perseus used the head of Medusa to rescue the Ethiopian princess Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. Perseus also killed Polydectes, whose advances on Danaë had turned violent in his absence. During an athletic competition later in life, Perseus accidentally hit the spectating Acrisius with a discus, killing him and thus fulfilling the prophecy.

walker

won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer for her novel The Color Purple, whose protagonist, Celie, is repeatedly raped by her father, producing the children Olivia and Adam, both of whom are immediately taken away by her father. Celie deals with her trauma by writing letters to God. Celie marries Mister, who also abuses her; she has an affair with Shug Avery, a blues singer who is also Mister's mistress. Walker's short story "Everyday Use" is about the cultural differences between Dee and Maggie, the two daughters of a Southern woman known as Mama.

ralph elison

wrote a story whose unnamed narrator earns a college scholarship by participating in a degrading Battle Royal; after being kicked out of college and working at the Liberty Paint company (known for its pure white paint), he joins a political group called the Brotherhood. At the climax of the novel, the narrator is nearly lynched by a Black nationalist named Ras the Destroyer during riots in Harlem

wright

wrote the 1940 bestseller Native Son. The protagonist of that novel, Bigger Thomas, gets a job as a chauffeur for Mary Dalton, but he suffocates her with a pillow for fear of being discovered in bed with her. Bigger later rapes and murders his girlfriend Bessie, and is ultimately sentenced to death for the murders. Wright's memoir Black Boy describes his youth in the Jim Crow South and his move to Chicago, where he joins and then becomes disillusioned with the Communist Party. Wright also wrote Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of novellas including "Big Boy Leaves Home" and "Fire and Cloud."

fancy free

Leonard Bernstein. Fancy Free, the first ballet choreographed by American dancer Jerome Robbins, was inspired by Paul Cadmus's painting The Fleet's In!. The ballet depicts the antics of three sailors on shore leave in New York City, where they meet two beautiful women. To determine which one will leave dateless, the sailors hold a dance contest, performing a galop, waltz, and a Cuban danzón. However, the women cannot choose a winner, and the sailors quickly start fighting. The women run away, but the men reconcile and the ballet ends with them crossing paths with another attractive woman and starting to pursue her. Fancy Free's success catapulted both Bernstein and Robbins to stardom; Bernstein later adapted Fancy Free into a musical and a film under the title On the Town; the musical features the song "New York, New York."

fuentes

Mexico): Though born into a well-to-do family, Fuentes 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. Fuentes also wrote absurdist plays and essay collections on Mexican and American art and literature.

paz

Mexico; Nobel 1990): A prominent poet and essayist, Paz 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, Paz 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 Paz's part-(East) Indian heritage.

analects

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 up the Analects; 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. The Analects also contain some of the basic ideas found in Confucianism, such as ren (benevolence) and li (proper conduct).

a tale of two cities

Paris and London are the title cities of this novel, which famously begins "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." At the start of the novel, the French doctor Alexandre Manette is released after 18 years in the Bastille, where he was imprisoned to prevent him from revealing the crimes of the Evrémonde family. Dr. Manette relocates to England with the help of his daughter Lucie and the Tellson's Bank employee Jarvis Lorry. Lucie marries Charles Darnay, a Frenchman who bears a striking resemblance to the English lawyer Sidney Carton. Darnay is also a member of the Evrémonde family. After returning to Paris during the French Revolution, Darnay is arrested as the result of a vendetta against the Evrémondes waged by the Defarges, a proletarian couple who encode information about their enemies into Madame Defarge's knitting. Carton expresses his love for Lucie by taking Darnay's place in jail, and goes to the guillotine thinking "it is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done." Lucie and Darnay escape with the help of the governess Miss Pross, who shoots Madame Defarge.

ra

Personification of the midday sun, he was also venerated as Atum (setting sun) and Khepri (rising sun), which were later combined with him. He traveled across the sky each day and then each night, the monster Apep would attempt to prevent his return. Other myths held that Ra spent the night in the underworld consoling the dead. Ra was the god of the pharaohs, so from the fourth dynasty onward all pharaohs termed themselves "sons of Ra," and after death they joined his entourage. He was portrayed with the head of a falcon, and crowned with the sun disk.

vargas llosa

Peru): While attending military school in Lima, Vargas Llosa 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 Vargas Llosa's 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; Vargas Llosa ran for president of Peru in 1990 but was defeated by Alberto Fujimori.

the nutcracker

Peter Tchaikovsky. Now a Christmastime favorite, The Nutcracker was choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. The plot, based on an E. T. A. Hoffmann story, opens at a Christmas party, where Drosselmeyer gives his goddaughter Clara a toy nutcracker, which her brother Fritz soon breaks. At night, the living room becomes a battleground between the evil Mouse King and toys and gingerbread soldiers, led by the Nutcracker. Clara throws her slipper at the Mouse King, distracting him long enough for the Nutcracker to kill him. The Nutcracker then turns into a prince and leads Clara into a magical forest where the "Waltz of the Snowflakes" marks the end of Act I. In Act II Clara and the prince arrive in the Land of Sweets, where they witness dances representing delicacies from around the world, including Arabian coffee and Spanish chocolate, as well as the "Dance of the Reed Flutes" and the Russian "Trepak." Mother Ginger has a group of clowns ("Polcinelles") emerge from her skirt to dance before the orchestra plays the "Waltz of the Flowers" and the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier dance a pas de deux. Finally, the Sugar Plum Fairy dances alone to music that marks one of the first orchestral uses of the celesta.

plato

Plato's Socratic dialogues are our main source both for Socrates's philosophy and his own; Plato often put his own thoughts in Socrates' mouth. Plato's dialogues include the Republic (about justice and the ideal city-state), the Symposium (about the nature of love), and the Meno (about whether virtue can be taught). Plato believed in a world of "forms"—or ideal versions of real things that lie beyond the human senses—which he discussed in such works as the Phaedo. Plato founded a school called the Academy, from which we get the common word.