William Blake

   

William Blake (1757-1827), was an English poet, painter, and print maker. Considered mad by contemporaries, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of poetry and visual arts. He was a man of intense moral purpose who looked forward to the establishment of paradise on earth. In his strange, mystical poems Blake envisioned earth and air as filled with spiritual forces in unending struggle, “armies of angels that soar, demons that lurk. “ As a child he once thought he saw the face of god peering in through the window. Because no one else could understand the “prophesies” in his verse, people thought him insane. Yet some of his poems are charmingly lyrical, written with almost childlike simplicity.

The first editions of Blake’s poems are remarkable in that the poet was also artist and engraver. He engraved the poems and his illustrations for them upon copper plates. The pages printed from these plates he later tinted by hand. Blake’s illustrations and engravings, both for his own books and for books of other writers, have the same unearthly, symbolical, and mystical quality as his poems. He wrote the following poem:

Jules Verne

Jules Verne (1828-1905), was a French author. He is considered to be the father of science fiction. His novels forecast, often with remarkable accuracy, the submarine, airplane, and automobile; space exploration; and numerous other inventions and scientific developments then many years in the future. A skilled storyteller, he became one of the world's most popular authors and remains so, especially among younger readers, to this day. A number of scientist have credited his writing, which abounds in technical detail with arousing their initial interest in science. 

From the Earth to the Moon (1865) describes the journey of a space vehicle; it is launched from Florida, reaches the moon, and returns to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) concerns the flawed genius of Captain Nemo and his submarine, the Nautilus. In Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Phineas Fogg wins a wager by circling the globe in record time. 

Verne was born in Nantes. He studied law in Paris, and tried writing plays but with little success. The popularity of his first novel, Five Weeks in a Baloon (1863), led him to choose writing as a career.

Charles Sanders Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), was a United States philosopher, logician, and scientist. He was the founder of the philosophical movement called pragmatism, which his friend William James developed. Peirce believed that the meaning of any idea is found in its workability, or practical results. Bertrand Russell wrote "Beyond doubt he was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century and certainly the greatest American thinker ever". Peirce made contributions in many fields, particularly in the modern development of logic, but received little recognition during his life-time. He published only one book, Photometric Researches (1878), but wrote many essays - on logic, metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, psychology, religion, and other fields.