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Phillis Wheatley or Phillis Wheatley Peters was an American poet born in Africa.
A native of West Africa, Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped as a young child and sold as a slave in 1761 to John and Susanna Wheatley in Boston. They chose the name Phyllis for her in honor of the ship on which the girl traveled the Middle Passage. The Wheatley family quickly recognized her intellectual abilities and encouraged her study of the classics. Phyllis began writing poems and verses, and some were even published when she was only 14 years old.
However, the 18th-century public had great difficulty accepting a black slave girl as a writer. In May 1773, Wheatley traveled to London with her master's son. There her first book, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published. Wheatley's literary talent and personal qualities contributed to her great social success in London. In the fall of 1773, Phyllis returned to the United States and Wheatley was granted her freedom. She married, but lived only 31 years.
Wheatley's most famous poem today, "On Being Brought from Africa to America" (1768), directly addresses the theme of slavery.
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Jean-François Millet was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism art movement. Toward the end of his career, he became increasingly interested in painting pure landscapes. He is known best for his oil paintings but is also noted for his pastels, conte crayon drawings, and etchings.
William Shakespeare was a British poet and playwright and writer.
William's father, John Shakespeare, was a merchant and official in Stratford. There are reports that he was a sailor for a time before joining a theater company in London. Beginning in the 1590s, Shakespeare began writing plays, and in 1593 he published a poem, Venus and Adonis, which became popular. He dedicated it to the Duke of Southampton, who was a philanthropist and patron of talent, and soon his business was booming.
From 1592 to 1600 Shakespeare wrote his dramas and romantic comedies "Richard III", "The Taming of the Shrew", "Romeo and Juliet", "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Merchant of Venice", as well as the comedies "Much Ado About Nothing", "Twelfth Night" and the tragedy "Julius Caesar". The playwright's business was so successful that he even bought a large house in Stratford. In 1599, Shakespeare became one of the owners, playwright and actor of the new theater "Globe". In 1603 King James took Shakespeare's troupe under his direct patronage. In the mature period, the great playwright turned to tragedies, there were "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear", "Macbeth" and others.
Although in the 19th century researchers had some doubts about the authorship of many of these works, William Shakespeare is considered the greatest English playwright, one of the best playwrights in the world. His plays have been translated into all major languages and to this day form the basis of the world theatrical repertoire, most of them have been screened many times. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Shakespeare remains the world's best-selling playwright, and his plays and poems have sold more than 4 billion copies in the nearly 400 years since his death.
