William Shakespeare (/ekspr/;[1] 26 April 1564 (baptised) 23 April 1616)

was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer

in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called
England'snational poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including
some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays,[ 154 sonnets, two long narrative
poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. His
plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed
more often than those of any other playwright. [4]
Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he
married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and
twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in
London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord
Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to
Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of
Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation
about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and
whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare's works include the 36 plays printed in the First Folio of 1623, listed
according to their folio classification as comedies,histories and tragedies.[204] Two
plays not included in the First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of
Tyre, are now accepted as part of the canon, with scholars agreed that Shakespeare
made a major contribution to their composition.[205] No Shakespearean poems were
included in the First Folio.
In the late 19th century, Edward Dowden classified four of the late comedies
as romances, and though many scholars prefer to call themtragicomedies, his term

is often used.[206] These plays and the associated Two Noble Kinsmen are marked
with an asterisk (*) below. In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term "problem
plays" to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus
and Cressida and Hamlet.[207] "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be
strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may therefore borrow a
convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as
Shakespeare's problem plays."[208] The term, much debated and sometimes applied
to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is definitively classed as a tragedy

Christopher Marlowe] (baptised 26 February 1564 30 May 1593) was

an English playwright, poet and translator of theElizabethan era. Marlowe
was the foremost Elizabethan tragedian of his day.[2] He greatly
influenced William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year as Marlowe
and who rose to become the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright after
Marlowe's mysterious early death. Marlowe's plays are known for the use
of blank verse and their overreaching protagonists.
A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May 1593. No reason was
given for it, though it was thought to be connected to allegations of
blasphemya manuscript believed to have been written by Marlowe was
said to contain "vile heretical conceipts". On 20 May he was brought to the
court to attend upon the Privy Council for questioning. There is no record of
their having met that day, however, and he was commanded to attend upon
them each day thereafter until "licensed to the contrary." Ten days later, he
was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer. Whether the stabbing was connected
to his arrest has never been resolved.

Marlowe has left us from his short, but brilliant, career seven plays, and in
several of them he was a pioneer in that particular genre. Of
these Tamburlaine Parts 1 and 2 caused the greatest excitement among his
contemporaries. The heroic nature of its theme, coupled with the splendour
of the blank verse and the colour and scale of its pageantry led to its
constant revival, with the great actor Edward Alleyn taking the part of
Tamburlaine.

Farinelli (Italian pronunciation: [farinli]) (24 January 1705 16 September 1782[1]), was
the stage name of Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi (pronounced [karlo brski]),
celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the
history of opera.
Broschi was born in Andria (in what is now Apulia, Italy) into a family of musicians. As
recorded in the baptismal register of the church of S. Nicola in Andria, his father Salvatore
was a composer and maestro di cappella of the city's cathedral, and his mother, Caterina
Barrese, a citizen of Naples. The Duke of Andria, Fabrizio Carafa, a member of theHouse of
Carafa, one of the most prestigious families of the Neapolitan nobility, honored Maestro
Broschi by taking a leading part in the baptism of his second son, who was baptised Carlo
Maria Michelangelo Nicola. [In later life, Farinelli wrote: "Il Duca d'Andria mi tenne al fonte."

("The Duke of Andria held me at the font.")]. In 1706 Salvatore also took up the non-musical
post of governor of the town of Maratea (on the western coast of what is now Basilicata),
and in 1709 that of Terlizzi (some twenty miles south-east of Andria). Unlike many castrati,
who came from poor families, Farinelli was well-to-do, and was related to minor nobility on
both sides of the family.
From 1707, the Broschi family lived in the coastal city of Barletta, a few miles from Andria,
but at the end of 1711, they made the much longer move to the capital city of Naples,
where, in 1712 Carlo's elder brother Riccardo was enrolled at the Conservatory of S. Maria di
Loreto, specialising in composition. Carlo had already shown talent as a boy singer, and was
now introduced to the most famous singing-teacher in Naples, Nicola Porpora. Already a
successful opera composer, in 1715 Porpora was appointed maestro at the Conservatory of
S. Onofrio, where his pupils included such well-known castrati as Giuseppe Appiani, Felice
Salimbeni, and Gaetano Majorano (known as Caffarelli), as well as distinguished female
singers such as Regina Mingotti and Vittoria Tesi; Farinelli may well have studied with him
privately.
Salvatore Broschi died unexpectedly on 4 November 1717, aged only 36, and it seems likely
that the consequent loss of economic security for the whole family provoked the decision,
presumably taken by Riccardo, for Carlo to be castrated. As was often the case, an excuse
had to be found for this illegal operation, and in Carlo's case it was said to have been
necessitated by a fall from a horse.
Under Porpora's tuition, his singing progressed rapidly, and at the age of fifteen he made his
debut a serenata by his master entitled Angelica e Medoro. The text of this work was the
first by the soon-to-be-famous Pietro Trapassi (known as Metastasio), who became a lifelong
friend of the singer. Farinelli remarked that the two of them had made their debuts on the
same day, and each frequently referred to the other as his caro gemello ("dear twin").

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (/rt/;[1] German: [johan vlfa fn

t] ( listen); 28 August 1749 22 March 1832) was a German writer
and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a
variety of metres and styles; prose andverse dramas; memoirs; an
autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy,
and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific
fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him are
extant. A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the
Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Carl August in 1782 after first taking up residence
there in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows
of Young Werther. He was an early participant in the Sturm und
Drang literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe
served as a member of the Duke'sprivy council, sat on the war and highway
commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and
implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He
also contributed to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the
rebuilding of its Ducal Palace, which in 1998 were together
designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[2]
After returning from a tour of Italy in 1788, his first major scientific work,
the Metamorphosis of Plants, was published. In 1791 he was made managing
director of the theatre at Weimar, and in 1794 he began a friendship with
the dramatist, historian, and philosopherFriedrich Schiller, whose plays he
premiered until Schiller's death in 1805. During this period Goethe published
his second novel,Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann
and Dorothea, and, in 1808, the first part of his most celebrated
drama,Faust. His conversations and various common undertakings
throughout the 1790s with Schiller, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Johann Gottfried
Herder, Alexander von Humboldt, Wilhelm von Humboldt,
and August and Friedrich Schlegel have, in later years, been collectively
termed Weimar Classicism.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (German: [vlfa amades

motsat], English see fn.;[1] 27 January 1756 5 December
1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus
Theophilus Mozart,[2] was a prolific and influential composer of
the Classical era.
Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood.
Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the
age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was
engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and
travelled in search of a better position, always composing
abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from
his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he
achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in
Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies,
concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was
largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of
his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived
by his wife Constanze and two sons.
He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles
of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music.
He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers,
and his influence on subsequent Western art music is
profound; Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works

in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity

will not see such a talent again in 100 years." [3]

Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe near Grantham on 25 December 1642. His father died before he was born
and in 1645 his mother marred a clergyman from North Welham in Leicestershire. She went to live with him while

Isaac Newton lived with his grandmother. When her second husband died in 1656 Isaacs mother returned to
Woolsthorpe and Isaac Newton went to live with her again.
On returning to Cambridge in 1667, he began to work on alchemy, but then in 1668 Nicolas Mercator published a
book containing some methods for dealing with infinite series. Newton immediately wrote a treatise, De Analysi,
expounding his own wider ranging results. His friend and mentor Isaac Barrow communicated these discoveries to
a London mathematician, but only after some weeks would Newton allow his name to be given. This brought his
work to the attention of the mathematics community for the first time. Shortly afterwards, Barrow resigned his
Lucasian Professorship (which had been established only in 1663, with Barrow the first incumbent) at Cambridge so
that Newton could have the Chair.
Newtons first major public scientific achievement was the invention, design and construction of a reflecting
telescope. He ground the mirror, built the tube, and even made his own tools for the job. This was a real advance
in telescope technology, and ensured his election to membership in the Royal Society. The mirror gave a sharper
image than was possible with a large lens because a lens focusses different colors at slightly different distances, an
effect called chromatic aberration.

Alexander Graham Bell

Hans Oersted